y CF- LIBRARY I If THK UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Received September^ / SSo . A c cess ions No A*^^^<^ Shelf No. T -30 PROPiEDIA PROPHETICA. VIEW OF THE USE AND DESIGN OLD TESTAMENT FOLLOWED BY TWO DISSERTATIONS, I. ON THE CAUSES OF THE RAPID PROPAGATION OF THE GOSPEL AMONG THE HEATHEN. II. ON THE CREDIBILITY OF THE FACTS RELATED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. WILLIAM RPJW^ E, L \ ALL, M. A. CO-DEAN OF BOrimG.!^ND RErXOR OF HADLEIGK, SUFFOLK. ■y LONDON: PRINTED FOR J. G. F. & J. RIVINGTON, ST. Paul's church yard, AND WATERLOO PLACF,, PALL MALL. 1840. ,Tl' LONDON: GILBERT AND RIVINGTON, PRINTERS, ST. John's souare. TO THE MOST REVEREND WILLIAM, BY DIVINE PROVIDENCE, LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, PRIMATE OF ALL ENGLAND, &C. THE FOLLOWING COMMENTARY UPON THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, IS, WITH ALL RESPECT, INSCRIBED, AS A TRIBUTE OF ADMIRATION FOR HIS PUBLIC CHARACTER, AND IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF NUMBERLESS PERSONAL OBLIGATIONS, BY HIS GRACe"'s MOST DUTIFUL AND DEVOTED SERVANT, WILLIAM ROWE LYALL. ADVERTISEMENT. The general argument, embodied in the volume here presented to the public, was sketched out by me some ten or twelve years ago, and formed the subject of a series of discourses preached in the Chapel of Lincoln's Inn, for the Warburtonian Lecture. I have not described them in my title-page by this name, because, although they form the subject, they can hardly be considered as the substance of the Lectures then delivered. Many things will be found in this volume, which I did not preach ; and some things there are, which I had formerly written, but have seen reason since, either to alter or omit. VI ADVERTISEMENT. By the terms of Bishop Warburton's will, it is stipulated, that the Lectures delivered under its foundation, shall be printed and published. 1 have hoped, that in giving to the public these commen- taries upon the same argument as I had chosen for the Lectures Avhich were preached, I shall be con- sidered as having sufficiently fulfilled the s|)irit of the testator's will, though I have not complied with the letter of his injunctions. Of the delay which has taken place in the publi- cation, it is hardly necessary to give any account. Many causes have conspired, and among others, the duties and avocations of a large and laborious parish. But the chief has been the hesitation felt by me in consequence of the apparent novelty, both of the general view which I have taken of the Evidences, and of many particular questions connected with them. New lights are commonly very unsafe lights to trust to, even in matters of minor importance ; but in religion they re(]uire, for the most jiart, to be known, onlv that thev niav be avoided. The ADVERTISEMENT. Vll reader, however, will, I hope, not be long in finding out, that in the present case, the novelty is more apparent than real ; and that, however I may some- times seem to transgress authority, yet in leaving the old and beaten tracks, in which the proofs of Christianity have so long been made to run, I am only, conducting him back into paths, far more ancient than those, from which he may be led for a time, to deviate. Nevertheless, if some of the propositions, which I shall venture to maintain, should appear more bold and hazardous, than is consistent with that wise respect which is always due to established arguments, I must claim so far to bespeak the candor of the reader, as to express my hope that he will suspend his final judgment, until he shall have perused the whole of the volume, and weighed every part of the reasoning. It would be too much to expect, that in all cases he should adopt my conclusions ; but at least he will, I think, be satisfied, that the effect of them, if received, would in no instance remove any part of the foundations viii ADVERTISEMENT. on which the divine authority of our faith is com- monly placed. My design has been to strengthen and enlarge them. W. R. L. Hadleigh, Suffolk. CONTENTS. LECTURE I. PAGE Introductory Remarks 1 LECTURE IL On the Antecedent Credibility of a Divine Revelation .... 20 LECTURE in. Effect of a Preceding Expectation in the Evidence of Divine Revelation, examined 36 LECTURE IV. Effect and Use of Prophecy, as connected with the Evidence of Divine Revelation 46 LECTURE V. On the Authenticity of the Old Testament 69 LECTURE VI. Opinions of the Fathers of the First Three Centuries. — Meaning of the Prophecies fixed before the Coming of Christ ... 84 a X CONTENTS. LECTURE VII. PAGE On Prophecies, the Meaning of which was kept back until after the Event 109 LECTURE VIII. The proper Use of Prophecy in the present days, examined . . 128 LECTURE IX. Connection of the Death of Christ with the Evidences of Christianity 152 LECTURE X. On the Proof of Christ's Authority as Head over his Church . 182 LECTURE XI. On the Evidence of Prophecy, as apphed to the Proof of Doctrines 208 LECTURE XII. On the Evidence of Prophecy, as apphed to the Proof of Doctrines — (continued) 231 LECTURE XIII. Jewish Opinions respecting the future Christ 254 LECTURE XIV. ITie Proof by which the Abrogation of the Mosaic Covenant was demonstrated 278 CONTENTS. XI LECTURE XV. PAGE The Proof by which the Institution of the Gospel Covenant was demonstrated — (conclusion) 296 DISSERTATION I. On the Causes of the Propagation of Christianity among the Heathen 323 DISSERTATION II. On the Credibility of the Facts related in the New Testa- ment 389 LECTURES, m^ - ^i LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. If we examine attentively the facts related in the New Testament, we cannot fail to observe, that if they really happened, they must have been generally known and believed at Jerusalem and elsewhere, in the age to which they are ascribed. A difference of opinion may have prevailed, as to the real author of C W k-^x»^**«-^ *>/ x^A^^^^t 2 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT. / Accordingly, upon opening the volume, one of the most striking features which it offers, is the absence of all controversy about the facts related in it. In no part of it, do the writers enter upon any argument, to show the truth of their statements. These are assumed, as relating to events which were notorious and familiarly known. It is plain, that if the history be true, such must necessarily have been the case. Any attempt to prove the facts, would have been a ground of suspicion ; while, on the other hand, the absence of all anxiety, on the part of any one of the writers, about the credibility of their story, consider- ing what that story is, affords a negative evidence of authenticity, stronger, perhaps, than any positive testimony, that could have been devised. Connect- ing this evidence with the rapid success of Christ- ianity in the world, it amounts almost to a moral demonstration. This part of the subject, I shall have occasion to examine more at length, hereafter ; but in the mean time, I shall take that for granted, which the narra- tive assumes ; and suppose the belief of the facts, by the Jews, to be conceded. It is plain that in the time of the Apostles, the inquiry was confined to an e.r- planation of the facts : How did they happen ? For what end ? By what power or authority ? The Jews, in general, appear to have accounted for the miracles, on the supposition of spiritual agency. It is probable, that some may have ascribed them to forbidden arts ; others, it may be, to fraud and collu- I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 3 sioii ; but there is no indication, leading us to suppose that the facts themselves were called in question by any party. Time however has effected a wide change in this part of the argument. No one, in the present day, who believes the facts related in the New Testament, is found to doubt the divine authority by which they were wrought. This is supposed to follow, by necessary conse- quence, if the history be true. Accordingly when we consult the works of Lardner, or Michaelis, or Paley, or of any of the more popular writers upon the Evidences, we find that the whole of the reason- ing, is directed to the proof of the genuineness of the four Gospels, and the credibility of the writers. The question whether, if the events described really happened, any other explanation may be offered, is never so much as raised. If in the present day a writer were to enter upon a formal dissertation, to prove that the miracles wrought by Christ, were not the effect of magical arts, nor of diabolical agency, it is probable that the reader would only smile at his simplicity. Either they were the work of a divine authority, or the whole was the effect of mere fraud and delusion : no middle hypothesis is now ever en- tertained. If Christ performed the actions ascribed to him by his disciples, the religion which he preached was divine ; if not, not. But upon turning to the reasoning of St. Paul and the other Apostles, as exhibited in the Acts and Epistles, we shall find that instead of ending here, in b2 4 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [LECT. their hands, the discussion only begins at this point. On Avhat proof do they rest the argument? Is it on the M'onderful actions ascribed to Christ, and the impossibility of accounting for them, except on the I supposition of his divine authority ? So far from it, they scarcely allude to his miracles at all ; and never in the way of proof, to show that what he said was to be believed, as if from God. This is pointedly illustrated by Paley, who has written a chapter on purpose to explain the probable reason of so great a peculiarity. It is plain that St. Peter had been pre- sent at many miracles wrought by Christ; and in the Acts, many are related as having been performed by himself. Yet out of six speeches attributed to him in this last writing, in two of them only, is re- ference made to the miracles of Christ ; and never but once does he refer to his own miraculous powers. The speech of Stephen contains no reference to miracles, though it is said of him by St. Luke that he did great wonders and miracles in his own person. Again, though various miraculous actions are at- tributed to St. Paul, at many of which the historian himself was present, yet in the several addresses which are given, as having been spoken by him, the appeals, cither to his own miracles, or to any miracles at all, are rare and only incidental. In the thirteen letters which he wrote, there are only three indu- bitable references to the miracles which he wroucfht ; and to the miracles wrought by Christ himself, I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 5 there are in his Epistles no direct allusions what- ever. The circumstance here adverted to, is explained by Paley, on the ground that the truth of the facts was notorious. " The silence of the Apostles," says he, " in this view of the case, is a proof, not that the miracles were not believed, but that the truth of them was a thing admitted." This supposition ex- plains, no doubt, why the Apostles did not enter into arguments, to prove that the facts really hap- pened : that would certainly have been superfluous, to persons who had been witnesses of their truth : but it does not explain why, having to prove, not the facts themselves, but the divine authority of the re- ligion which they preached, they did not distinctly allege those facts in their argument, if it rested in their minds, as it now does in ours, on that particu- lar evidence. The data of a proposition may often be tacitly assumed, but not the proofs; this would turn the argument into a mere assertion. Now it is as proofs, and not simply as historical facts, that we are at present considering the miracles. We see that the topic, which in modern ex- positions of the evidences of Christianity, is ex- clusively considered, the Apostles either assume, or only dwell upon incidentally. But then, as if to balance the scale, we find the argument on which the Apostles rested their proof, is passed over with as little notice, by writers in the present day. In the speeches put into the mouths of the Apostles, D^l 6 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT. in the Acts, as well as in the Epistles which have come do^^^l to us, jthe single authority to which they appeal, is the Old Testament. AVhatever be the immediate subject of their reasoning: whether it be the divinity of Christ, or his propitia- tion, or his exaltation as head over his Church, or the calling of the Gentiles, or the rejection of the Jews, or more generally, the truth of the tidings which they proclaim: be the subject of their preaching what it may, the storehouse, from which they draw their proofs, is the " Law and the Prophets." With very little limitation, the same remark will apply to our Saviour's own teaching. It is very common, however, to see it stated in books, and still more to hear in conversation, that the proof of the Old Testament now rests on the authority of the New. We meet with this opinion in books written expressly on the Evidences; but even when the position is not formally laid down, it is always tacitly assumed. In Paley, for example, Pro- phecy is counted only among the "auxiliary evidences" of Christianity ; and the whole subject is discussed in a single chapter, in which one prophecy only is referred to, and dismissed immediately without any comment. Now it is not to be supposed that the Apostles did not understand the real grounds, on which the truths, which they were commissioned to preach, had been placed by God. It is much more likely, that we, in the present day, have committed a mis- take, in passing over so lightly, an authority, on I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 7 which they reposed so confidently ; and not only so confidently, but, as the event has declared, so success- fully. A closer examination of the argument however, will, I think, satisfy us, that neither the one nor the other made any mistake in the reasoning ; but that the question which we, in the present day, have to consider, instead of being the same question which was argued 1800 years ago, is one prodigiously more easy of solution. However difficult it may be, to speculate upon events beforehand, it is often quite easy to specify the causes from which they proceeded, after they have happened. It requires no extraordinary sagacity in an historian to discern, that the conquest of Constantinople by the Turks, was one main cause of the revival of literature in Europe ; and that this last, was that which really produced the reforma- tion of religion, in the fifteenth century ; but a per- son who should have foreseen these results when Con- stantinople fell, would have exhibited a degree of penetration that would have seemed miraculous. Just so it is in the case before us. It is not difficult for us, who witness the establishment of Christianity in the world, and observe the effects which have followed from the facts which we read in the New Testament, to demonstrate the end, for which they were exhi- bited, and the authority, from which they must have proceeded ; but this proof was quite another thing in the days of the Apostles ; when that which they pro- claimed, and which we now witness and experience. 8 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [LECT. must have been accounted by many, as no better than a dream. They had to assign the cause and intention of the miracles, before the event ; and, moreover, to bring mankind to adopt their explana- tion, at a time when its truth was altogether a matter of conjecture. A very little reflection will show us, that the task which was thus imposed upon the first preachers of Christianity, was not only more difficult than ours : it was totally and absolutely different ; it belonged to a different de- partment of reasoning; and from the necessity of things, required an entirely different mode of proof. This would seem to be plain upon the mere enun- ciation of the case ; but an example will, perhaps,^ assist us to understand the logical difference of the two arguments. The circulation of the blood is now a well-known and established fact, in the science of the human frame ; and it is easy for an anatomist to demonstrate the cause on which it depends ; to point out, that is, the contrivance, by which this important function is performed. But at a time when the phenomena were unknown and unsuspected, the genius of Harvey was able, by reflection upon the parts, as they lay in an inanimate mass before him, to deduce the fact, a prim'i, from the mere inspection of the cavi- ties and ventricles of the heart. This, we see, was ari^uing, not from effects to causes^ but from causes to (fects : a ])rocess of reasoning whicli, in the case of contiuijeut events, is next to impossible ; but I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 9 which, even in physical events, where effects follow from causes with stated and undeviating certainty, is so difficult and uncertain, that the instance here mentioned is said to be the only one, of any discovery in experimental science having been so made. This example exactly illustrates the nature of the reasoning in the case of Christianity, before and after its establishment. Assuming the truth of the facts related in the New Testament: — and supposing the question to be only as to the authority by which the miracles were wrought, and the end for which, on a supposition of their divine authority, the regular course of nature had been suspended: — the commonest powers of reasoning can now assign the answer. The establishment among mankind, of those precise truths which he, who worked the miracles, declared that he was sent into the world to proclaim ; the disappear- ance of idolatry, from all the more civilized portions of the globe ; the beneficent effects, which have fol- lowed directly out of the belief of mankind in the facts under consideration; — these point at once to the solution. No one who believes in the providential character of the facts, will raise a doubt upon the question ; as no one in the present day, who believes in the facts themselves, will ascribe them to any other than divine power. In how different a form, did the truth present itself to the understanding of mankind, in the days of the Apostles ! When we reason upon the miracles, we 10 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT- assume that our hearers are acquainted with the lead- ing principles of natural philosophy ; that they would be affronted if we supposed them to believe in the reality of magical and forbidden arts ; or in the power of any subordinate spirits, to control the laws, either of the physical or moral government of the world. We take for granted that they are imbued with a sense of the great truths of natural religion ; of the unity and attributes of God ; of his truth and justice, no less than of his infinite power. Reverse these assumptions, and the argument from miracles becomes a rope of sand in our hands. This, however, is precisely what we must do : we must assume just the contrary of every one of the conditions I have mentioned, if we mean to place ourselves in the position of the Apostles, and of those with whom they had to reason. " But even supposing this difficulty to have been overcome ; and that their hearers had conceded that no power not divine could have been the author of the works ascribed to Christ : yet how improbable an explanation of the facts, must that event which we now witness with our eyes, have seemed to man- kind, at the time when it was first proposed to their belief! An interpretation more incredible, than that the existing religions of mankind were thenceforth to be abolished, by divine authority, and that the worship of one, who in the eyes of men had seemed ^ only a humble Jew, , was to be substituted in tlreir place — could not easily have been put upon any I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 11 events ; nor one less likely to have been embraced by mankind, if it had rested only on the opinion of the Apostles ; or on any reasoning, built by them, merely upon the wonderful character of the facts : — for no facts could be so wonderful, as their explana- tion would, in such a case, have seemed. It is not ) without an effort of the understanding even in the present day, when Christianity is established, that we can appreciate the true character of this great event ; but viewed in the abstract, and before it came to pass, no language can convey a full statement of its antecedent improbability. As this proposition lies at the bottom of the argu- ment, which I propose to discuss in the following Lectures, it is important that the difference between the proof of Christianity, as the question now stands and as it stood in the days of the Apostles, should be, not merely admitted as a fact, but exactly under- stood. Before I proceed, therefore, to examine the evidence on which the Apostles rested their reason- ing, it will be expedient to say a few words, respect- ing the ground, upon which the truth of their con- clusions is commonly placed in the present day. In every work with which I am acquainted upon the Evidences of Christianity, its divine authority is considered to rest immediately upon the mi- racles. Such a way of speaking is sufficiently correct for popular use ; but in strictness of reason- ing, the miracles are merely the premises of the argument and not the proofs. In the New Testa- 9 12 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT. ment itself, they are always so adduced. They are there spoken of as " signs ;" as visible demonstrations of God's mind, leading mankind to expect that the things which he had promised, were about to be ful- filled ; but not as the antecedent causes, of the things which should come to pass, nor as being at all con- nected with them by any moral or physical depend- ence. " The times of man's ignorance," St. Paul tells the Athenians, " God had in past times winked at ; but now commandeth all men every where to repent. Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained ; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." Assuming, now, all this to be true: — that God had forbidden mankind to worship idols of stone, and that thenceforth they were all commanded to acknowledge him in the way which the Apostles preached : — for that he would no longer wink at the ignorance and wickedness of his creatures, but called them every where to repent, and to believe in him whom God had sent into the world and raised from the dead, as a sign or assurance to mankind of his coming again to judge all the children of men : — assuming, I say, all this to be true, yet it was not matter which St. Paul could prove by general reason- ing; as little could he prove it on oath, or by offer- ing to submit himself to any test to which his sin- cerity could be subjected. Humanly s})eaking, it I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 13 could be determined no otherwise than by the event. If God had indeed raised Jesus from the dead, as a sign or assurance to mankind of all these things being true : in that case, the word, which God had declared by the mouth of the Apostles, would come to pass ; if not, not. The language of Gamaliel, as recorded in the fifth chapter of the Acts, was not only the language of humanity, but of the plainest good sense. " Refrain from these men, and let them alone ; for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought ; but if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it." That such was the view taken of the miracles by the Apostles, might be shown from abundance of other passages ; but it was also the true and logical view, as will readily appear if we examine any po- pular work upon the Evidences. For example : — in the work of Paley the whole argument is made to rest upon two propositions : first, " That there is f satisfactory evidence that many professinc/ to be original witnesses of the Christian miracles, passed their lives in dangers, labotcrs, and sufferings, voluntarily tcndergone in attestation of the accounts which they have delivered;'''' and secondly, " That there is not satisfactory evidence that persons pretending to be original witnesses of any other similar miracles, have acted in the same manner, in attestation of the accounts which they have de- livered.'' Now assuming this to be proved, yet it is plain that these propositions, are merely the data of the / 14 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT. argument : — the real proof of the conclusion which he draws, is built, not upon the miracles themselves, but upon the effects which they are supposed to have produced ; that is, upon the event, of M'hich they were the stated signs, having come to pass. That the case is so, may easily be shown, by merely reversing the hypothesis of the argument. The evidence of the above propositions will be the same, whether we suppose the labours of the Apostles to have been crowned with success or to have miscarried ; but it is plain, that on the last supposition, the conclusion, now built upon the miracles, will fall to the ground. Whatever explanation of the facts might be pro- posed, it would be certain that the Apostles had mistaken their true meaning and intention, however great the labours, and dangers, and sufferings which they underwent, in confirmation of the accounts, which they delivered. We see, then, what the proof is, on which the pre- sent belief of mankind, in the divine authority of the miracles of Christ, is founded. It is not on the won- derfulness of the actions which he performed, that this belief ultimately rests ; nor in the purity of the pre- cepts which he delivered ; nor on the reasonableness of the doctrines which he preached ; nor on the testi- mony of the witnesses whom he left behind, to all that he had said and done : All this is true, and may be proved ; but all this is not enough : — that which the proof now rests upon, and without whicli the whole edifice would crumble to the ground, is the sue- I.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 15 cess of his religion. It is upon the fact that, agreeably to the declarations of God's purposes, as proclaimed by the Apostles, idolatry has been subverted ; and a form of religion substituted in its place, which is cer- tainly composed (whatever may be our opinion of it in other respects) of the self-same verities which he who worked, and they who attested the miracles, declared from the beginning that they were com- ) manded to make known. Explain the miracles themselves as we please, the ^ establishment of Christianity cannot have been the effect \ of collusion ; still less of magical arts, qr^of the influ- ence of subordinate agents of any kind, either human / or spiritual. Any such supposition is stamped with absurdity on the very face of it. It would imply, not that God had permitted a temporary invasion of the laws of his material creation, but that he had thrown the reins of government from his hands. Neither does it seem to me, that we should much improve the matter, by supposing the event to have been the effect of chance. Such an hypothesis does not indeed involve an absurdity; but it is ex- cluded in this case, not only by the character of the event, but by the history. If the establishment of Christianity was the chance result of promiscuous causes, then were the solemn declarations of the Apostles, of the constraining force which was upon them to announce the Gospel to mankind, nothing more than the effects of delusion ; the mere waking dreams, real or pretended, of a few heated imagina- 16 INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. [lECT. tions. But docs experience teach us to believe it credible, that on such a supposition their solemn declarations would have come true ? We know no instance of any event in history, even of tlie com- monest kind, which madmen had foretold, having come to pass ; much less such an event, as the rise and establishment in the world, of a new system of religious belief, to consist of principles and doctrines, both of faith and practice, each of which had be- forehand, point by point, been formally specified and explained. But if the establishment of Christianity be a part of the evidence, on which the belief of its divine authority now stands, — and so important a part, that if it were removed the chain of proof would fall to pieces in our hands, — how, it is obvious to ask, are we to account for its successful propagation ? The more improbable we suppose the doctrines of which it consists, so much the stronger the evidence re- quired ; the more incredible the event may have seemed, before it happened, the greater must have been the difficulty, of bringing mankind to entertain that antecedent belief, on which its success was founded. For if a large portion of mankind had / not been persuaded of the divine authority of the Gospel befm^e it was established, it would seem im- possible to understand, how it could have been esta- blished at all. / The Apostles then must necessarily have been \ provided with evidence of s-»-r^ ^* « * -^ Acj^^-^^ C«*- over and above the facts which are preserved in the ^t,^^ ^ formly taken from the Old Testament. This, as I have before observed, was the document to which ' they appealed ; and, as far as we have the means of judging, this was the evidence by which mankind were originally converted.' ; On the other hand, when we examine the ground, upon which the proof of the divine authority of the Christian miracles now depends, we see that it was ground which, for obvious reasons, it was impossible for the Apostles to occupy. Accordingly that which I shall endeavour to show in these Lectures, is the following proposition : — namely, that the place which the actual establishment of Christianity now holds in the argument, in the time of the Apostles was supplied by the Old Testament. — I shall not confine myself to the proof of this proposition, as a mere historical fact; but I shall endeavour to explain the reasons, on which the necessity of a preparatory dispensation was founded. In the dis- cussion of these reasons, I shall be obliged to touch upon many topics, j)liilosophical and historical as well as theological, which have not heretofore been considered in connection with the Evidences of Christianity; but in the result I hope to be able to demonstrate, that without the preceding belief of mankind in the Jewish, or in some scheme of pro- phecy, the difficulties wliich tlio Apostles had to T.] INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. 19 contend with, would have been insurmountable. I > shall show that their success, if not impossible, (as ' my own opinion would incline me to believe,) would at least have been, except on this hypothesis, in- explicable, on any known and acknowledged prin- ciples of the human mind. j c 2 LECTURE II. ON THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY OF A DIVINE REVELATION. We have seen the important change which circum- stances liave introduced into the Evidences of Chris- tianity, since the time when it was first published ; and that the reasoning on which the proof now de- pends, was not and could not be employed by the Apostles. Let us then dismiss this reasoning from our minds, and suppose ourselves to be examining the evidence, not of an old established religion, but of one offered for the first time to our consideration. With this view the simplest course will be, to put aside, for a time, the particular case of Christianity, and to look at the subject in the abstract. Suppose then a miracle to happen in the present day, how could we demonstrate that it was wrought by God ? Or, supposing a company of men, in the present day, to have received, in the same manner as the Apostles, a commission from God, to spread LECT. II.] THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY, ETC. 21 abroad the tidings of a revelation from heaven : what is the evidence which they would be required to produce ? Let us begin with answering the first of these questions : assuming all the facts of the case — that a miracle had been publicly and notoriously wrought — and that no question was raised about the credibility of the witnesses : — how could they demonstrate, that it was the effect of a divine interposition ? To do this, what is it that they must prove ? A belief in the permanency of the laws of nature seems to be so inseparable from the human mind, that some metaphysicians have considered it as an original principle in our nature. But in fact it is nothing more than a necessary conclusion of reason ; and one, which is identical with the well-known maxim, that whatever is, will continue to exist in the same state — a body in motion to persevere in a state of motion — a body at rest to remain in a state of rest — until the presence or withdrawal of some cause, to interrupt the existing state of things. This truth is laid down by Newton, as is well known, among the axioms upon which he has explained the system of the universe. Now as the supposition of a miracle, directly con- tradicts this principle of our nature or our reason, call it which you will, we see at once what truth it is, which really lies at the bottom of that incredulity, with which every sensible man listens to stories pretending to be miraculous ; namely, the truth just mentioned, 22 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [lECT. that the course of nature will continue without inter- ruption, until the presence or withdrawal of some cause to interrupt the existing state of things : an inference which, though referred by metaphysicians to an axiom of philosophy, might just as pro- perly be called a maxim of common sense. Quid- ^ quid oritur^ says Cicero, qualecunqice est, caiisam ) habeat a naturd necesse est : ut etiamsi 'prceter consue- \ ttidinem extiterit, prceter naturam tamen, non potest K existere. Causam igitur investigato in re nova et \ admirabili, si potes ; si nullam reperies, illud tamen exploratum habeto, nihil fieri potuisse sine causa. I shall not enlarge upon this point, because it is one, 1 imagine, on which all reasonable men, whether philosophers or not, are practically agreed. That which Cicero here applies to heathen omens and prodigies, is applicable to every fact pretending to be miraculous : " In every new and surprising phenomenon, inquire into the cause ; and even if you should discover none, yet be certain that no fact can have happened without a cause ; and that this cause, even though it may seem contrary to ex- perience, yet cannot really be contrary to the laws of nature." To go back then to the case of an asserted miracle, as just now stated : the question we see, is as to the sufficient cause. Demonstrate this, and the mere wonderfulness of the fact, has no weight whatever in the argument. Neither does it matter what the cause may be ; if we are sure of its reality II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 23 the most miraculous effect may be just as credible, \ as the commonest occurrence which falls under the notice of our senses. To take an example : the disappearance of the / y/ moon from our solar system, would justly be deemed i as improbable an event as could be mentioned Nevertheless, if it had been predicted by Sir Isaac Newton as one which, from astronomical calculations not liable to error, would necessarily take place in a certain stated year ; that is to say, supposing him to_^ have demonstrated the sufficient cause of this event, as clearly as he has demonstrated the law of nature, by which the heavenly bodies are now retained in their orbits : it would not be deemed incredible. On the contrary, every one who understood the reason- ing, and was satisfied of the correctness of the prin- ciples, on which the calculations were grounded, would confidently expect them to be verified. ; Moreover, when the event did happen, he would have no doubt in his mind, that the causes of it were the same, as had been previously laid down. As the present is a question in religion, and not in natural philosophy, let us then correct the words of Cicero ; and when he says, that whatever happens, must have its cause " in nature," let us substitute another term in the place of nature, and say that whatever happens must have its cause in the ' will of God;' (which I presume to be the real meaning of the word) and we shall at once have an exact idea, of what it is that we have to do, when we endeavour 24 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [lECT. to prove that a fact was miraculous. If the course of nature is founded upon the will of God, a miracle implies a change in this will. This is the cause which we have to demonstrate. Take any case, then, and reason upon it, as in the example I just now proposed. Suppose that we could demonstrate, « priori^ not the mere possibility of this or that design being in the mind of God ; but the actual y«c< of some fixed design on his part, the consequence of which, whatever it was, would necessarily and inevitably entail, pro hac vice, a deviation from the course of nature ; so that a large number of persons knew beforehand, and were daily expecting, a divine dispensation which involved the supposition of miracles of some sort : it is plain that in this case, mankind would not, anv more than in the case I just now spoke of, dispute about the credibility of the miracles, merely because they were wonderful, and implied a suspension of the laws of nature ; nor, supposing them to have hap- pened, would they dispute about the cause. The antecedent knowledge and expectation of mankind, would silence all objections drawn from mere general reasoning. It would do so, as I showed, when the question related to matters pertaining to natural philosophy ; and there can be no reason for suppos- ing, that it would not do the same in a matter con- nected with religion. It is evident that in the above cases, the difficulty of the suj>position consists, in the apparent impossi- bility of conceiving such an antecedent knowledge of II ] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. God's designs, as the argument requires. If we were supposing an opinion built only upon the un- substantial fancies of mankind, and not on any assign- able proof: whatever might have been the nature of the previous expectation, it never would have been realized. This is certain: nevertheless, assuming such a case to be possible, if we could prove the fact of a previous expectation, on the part of large numbers of mankind, of some miraculous dispensation, we / should be at no loss, in case that expectation was \ fulfilled, to understand the reasons on which their / subsequent belief was founded. The only difficulty \ would be, how to account for the suj^posed previous / expectation. In the preceding remarks I have had in view the case of a single miracle ; we now come to the second case which I proposed for consideration : that of a revelation — which is also a miracle indeed, but of a peculiar and more comprehensive kind. Here we have to prove, not simply that a fact was the immediate act of God ; but to show that the purpose of it was to make an authoritative declaration to mankind of certain stated truths. It is easy to sup- pose a case, where no doubt might exist as to the divine aidliwity of the miracle, but in which it would be impossible to offer any conjecture, as to the end for which it was wrought. Let us then assume this last to have been com- municated, by a divine illumination, to the minds of twelve, or any stated number of individuals: In 26 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [lECT. what way, could they convey the supernatural . con- viction of their own minds, to the understanding of others? Here a moral reason is alleged for a fact purely physical ; there is therefore no natural connection between the premises and conclusion. Neither is it the agency of God, which is in question — that is assumed ; but it is the purpose in God's mind; and this, while that purpose is a matter only in speculation; something not actually carried into effect, but to be executed hereafter. We are not speaking of the proof of facts, but of propositions, M'hich I am supposing to be new to the apprehension of mankind, and merely propounded for their accept- ance. Admit all the facts of the case ; assume the divine authority of the proposed truths ; still it may be asked, What legitimate evidence can be suggested, by which those who were commissioned to spread the knowledge of them abroad throughout the world, could certainly show of such facts, however confessedly miraculous, that the demonstration of those particu- lar truths, was the object for which they had been exhibited ? It is evident that in proportion as the truths are supposed to be, in themselves, more or less easy of belief, more or less conformable to our existing no- tions of God and of his government, the proof required will be more or less strong. If we assume the doctrines propounded to be without any ante- cedent probability ; to be startling and unexpected, and to transcend anv thino^ that human reason would II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 27 have presumed : the evidence must be proportioiiably weighty. If on the other hand, we suppose nothing more to be in question, than an authoritative publica- tion of opinion and notions, which had already been anticipated in the traditional belief of the vulgar, or the reasonings of the learned : lighter proofs will satisfy the conditions of the argument. Let us then take the least improbable case that can be stated : that which Paley has chosen, in his refutation of Hume. The belief of mankind in the hope of another life, however derived, has prevailed so extensively in all ages and nations, that it would seem to have its root in some original principle of the human mind. Nisi cognitum coinprehensumque animis haberemus, non tarn stabilis opinio permaneret^ nee confirmaretur diii- turnitate temporis, nee una eum scBeulis atatibusque hominum inveterm'e potuisset. The reason of this widely-spread conviction, this sceeulonmi quasi au- gurium futiiroi'um, as Cicero elsewhere terms it, is not the question; but only the fact of its existence. Another life, however, being supposed, it would seem to be not unnatural for mankind to infer, from the tendencies of virtue and vice, to produce happi- ness or misery in the world which we now live in, that in the next, the same principle will be more perfectly developed ; that those manifold exceptions to the rule, observable in the fortunes of mankind here below, will hereafter be rectified, and all present inequalities made even. 28 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [lECT. That there is nothing incredible in this doctrine, nothing in it, contrary to the common sense and reason of mankind, seems to be indisputable. And it will not, I tliink, be denied, that supposing it to be true (which it might be, and yet we not know it) the authoritative publication of its truth, on the part of God, would afford a motive and reason suf- ficient to constitute the hypothesis of a revelation. The language of antiquity on the subject will cer- tainly prove so much. There is a well-known passage in the Alcibiades, in which Socrates is made to intimate, not only his belief of a future life, but his expectation that some future divine communi- cation will, in process of time, be made to mankind respecting it. Now an opinion put into the mouth of Socrates, and that by Plato, must not be treated as incredible and absurd. It cannot with any decency be other- wise regarded, than as a strong testimony to show, that there is no philosophical improbability in the hypothesis of a revelation. Socrates was no dreamer ; and neither he nor Plato had any thing, except the abstract probability of the hypothesis, to create the expectation of such an event, in their minds. But let us for a moment put the case that Socrates had pretended to be that messenger whom he speaks of; that Scuic Ttc, whose fiiture apj)earance in the world, he did not deem au unreasonable hope. We will also suppose certain facts to have been alleged, II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 29 ill proof of his divine commission ; and the question to have been raised, after his death, as to the true character of his pretensions. Under these circumstances, it is probable his fol- lowers would have appealed to the doctrines which he taught; and more particularly, perhaps, to this great doctrine of a future life. " Suppose the world we live in to have had a Creator," they might have said ; " suppose a part of the creation to have received faculties from their Maker, by which they are capable of rendering a moral obedience to his will, and of voluntarily pursuing any end for which he has designed them ; suppose the Creator to intend for these, his rational and accountable agents, a second state of existence, in which their situation will be regulated by their behaviour in the first state ; suppose it to be of the utmost importance to the subjects of this dispensation, to know what is intended for them: suppose, nevertheless, almost. the whole ,4 race, either by the imperfection or their fad^ulties^ or the misfortune of their situation, to want this knowledge : — these," they might have argued, " must be admitted to be j^robable suppositions, and may be true ones ; and in this last case, was not a reve- lation to be expected at the hand of a wise and beneficent Being ? Suppose him to design for mankind a future state, can you be surprised that he should acquaint them with it?" This is the reasoning employed by Paley against Hume ; and I am now supposing it to have been 30 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [LECT. employed in the imaginary case, of the scene of the argument being at Athens, as just stated. We see at once what would have been the answer. It would have been said, "' We are inquiring, whether certain stated doctrines, are to be received as of divine authority : and instead of proving the fact, you are only showing, that the supposition is not absurd or incredible. The data from which you have drawn your conclusion, are not grounded upon any direct proofs of a design, on the part of God, to make a revelation of his will ; but upon a general consi- deration of God's attributes on the one hand, and of the condition of human nature on the other. These are reasons which were just as true in the time of Deucalion, or in the age of Homer, as when Socrates was born. No change has taken place, that we are able to detect, in the intervening periods, as to the posi- tion of mankind, with respect to the present question; nor, if we may trust to our experience, in the rules of God's moral government. Great indeed is the ignorance which prevails in the world, as to the true nature of God, and of the worship which ought to be paid to him ; great is the need we have of some divine instructor, in case God's human creation, are to be held responsible in another life, for all the follies and immoralities they are guilty of, in this : but all this was as certain a thousand years ago, as it is now. Mankind are not more ignorant or more wicked, than in other ages of the world ; why then was the ])lessing of a revelation so long kept back ? II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 31 The more clear you consider the necessity of a re- velation, on the supposition of a future state of rewards and punishments being true, the stronger surely the presumption becomes, of the doctrine not being true, from the fact of so many millions of human beings, having been permitted to live and die in every age of the world, in ignorance of a dis- pensation, which if true, it would so deeply have concerned them to have known." I see not how this reasoning was to have been met by speculative assumptions of any kind, even sup- posing the discussion to have regarded only the general probability of some revelation. But in the case, where we suppose the question to be, the divine authority of a certain stated revelation, one, asserted to have been actually made: here the inquiry is plainly into a matter of fact ; and in these circum- stances, the rules of reasoning require that specula- tive arguments should be excluded from the evidence. It is the interposition of some reasons, which have not always been in actual operation ; of some change in the position of mankind, or in the divine eco- nomy of the world, calling for a corresponding change, in the knowledge possessed by mankind, of their relation to God, which, in this case, we have to demonstrate ; a change not inferred after the event by probable guesses, but which was, or might have been, known beforehand, from principles of reasoning, such as would explain the actual expectation, on the ) ./- 32 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [lECT. part of mankind, of some divine communication being about to be made to them. This, or something like this, is the only kind of evidence which I am able to conceive, on which the antecedent probability of any particular revelation could be demonstrated. So far is certain, that such an hypothesis as I have here indicated would re- move every difficulty. Had mankind, at the time when Socrates lived, been looking for the appearance of some divine ambassador: the question of the truth of his pretensions to such a character, would have been of easy determination. Where and what were his credentials ? If, in reply to this inquiry, he had been able, under the circumstances I have been stating, to perform such actions as have been ascribed to Christ, no one, I think, would have been sur- prised, if the same effects .had followed from his preaching. Let us then, for the sake of argument, put the case here supposed ; and imagine for a moment, that some such persuasion as we are speaking of, existed in the public mind, at the present time ; that there was among ourselves, a widely dispersed expectation, of some new dispensation of things about to arise, under which an important alteration would be pro- mulged to mankind, relating to the divine govern- ment. In what way, we suppose the knowledge of this intended dispensation to have been commu- nicated to mankind, is not material. In fact, it will II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 33 not affect the argument, even if we suppose it to have no assignable foundation. I am at present only endeavouring to trace the effect which such an opinion, whether well or ill founded, would produce upon the disposition of men's minds. Let the expectation, if you please, be an opinion derived from mathema- tical calculations, such as men build upon, when they expect a comet to appear : or let it be only a strong persuasion, drawn from merely accidental data : let it be confined to the breasts of a few philoso- phers and learned men, or be entertained by the vulgar and unlearned alone : let the origin of it be viewed in every different light, some considering the reasons to be certain, and some only possible, and others regarding them as absurd : — take any suppo- sition we choose, yet have we only to put the case, that the opinion prevailed beforehand ; that it had \ been commonly talked about ; that mankind were gazing in expectation and looking to the event, some with earnest belief, others with doubt, or it may be even with ridicule ; all this will matter nothing in the result : — If the event should correspond with the popular expectation; if a revelation should be an- nounced : if facts, apparently miraculous, should be wrought in testimony of its truth : if thousands and ten thousands should ijamediately enrol themselves among its followers; and in the course of a few years, all nations and languages of mankind should acknow- ledge its divine authority: — such a case, if real, D 34 THE ANTECEDENT CREDIBILITY [LECT. would be deemed demonstrative. Higher evidence to prove a revelation to be from God, cannot, perhaps be projiosed ; — at all events, mankind both learned and unlearned, would agree to think it cer- tain. But it will of course be said, that the hypothesis which I have been framing, is a mere philosophical dream ; a case which could never, under any con- ceivable circumstances, have been realized. It pre- supposes a sort of knowledge, to which evidently the human understanding cannot possibly attain. For how, it may be asked, could mankind, under any circumstances whatever, know what were the intentions of God ? Mankind indeed are liable to de- lusions of all sorts ; and we may, therefore, conceive the case of such a delusion, as the expectation of a messenger from heaven ; and assuming such a delu- sion to exist, it is precisely that sort of delusion, which would be likely to realize itself. But it is plain, that the thoughts and the designs of God, are known only to himself; they could never have been divined beforehand, by the utmost stretch of the human understanding. Such an exjiectation as that just now supposed, could not have been built upon solid reasons of any sort, except we suppose, that the secret of his counsels had been revealed to man- kind, in some miraculous manner; a sup])osition, it may be thouglit, which would remove one difticnlty by the substitution of a greater. , But extravagant II.] OF A DIVINE REVELATION. 35 as the hypothesis which 1 have just stated, may seem, yet I hope to show, that it represents with perfect exactness the supposition, on which the belief of mankind in Christianity was founded. Their belief must have had some foundation, good or bad ; — I am simply proposing to show what that founda- tion was. This is a matter of historical fact, which may be capable of demonstration. The truth of Christianity is an entirely distinct question. Persons might differ upon that point, and yet agree in their account of the supposed causes, from which the belief of its truth originated. D -2 36 EFFECT OF A PRECEDING [lECT. LECTURE III. EFFECT OF A PRECEDING EXPECTATION IN THE EVIDENCE OF DIVINE REVELATION, EXAMINED. State the case as we please, it is impossible to frame any hypothesis of divine revelation, such as that the denial of its truth, shall involve a disputant in a philosophical absurdity. And accordingly, provided he can demonstrate, that there is any philosophical ab- surdity, in the conclusions to bo established, he is at liberty to reject the proofs ; and would still be so, were we to double or treble their amount; because this amount can never be so great, as to justify us in be- lieving, that any facts could have God for their author, if thedeclared purpose of them, was confessedly adverse to human happiness, or subversive of any of the great principles, either of reason or morality. Therefore it is, that all writers of the })resent day, when proving the truth of Christianity, lay so much stress uj)on this part of the argument. Until it can be shown, that there is no suflicient reason for considerinof the III.] EXPECTATION EXAMINED. 37 hypothesis of its divine origin, to be absurd or incre- dible, it would be labour thrown away to prove the truth of the facts. But we have seen, that in the case of a new reli- gion, it is not enough to show that it contains nothing contrary to reason — nothing unworthy of ) God, or inconsistent with his attributes ; — it must be shown to be antecedently probable ; and so pro- j bable, as that the revelation of it was an event, which might actually be ea^pected. On the other hand, as n a revelation must be attended with miracles of some sort, it follows, that if we could show from reason or on any certain grounds of belief, that God, at some given period, would change his usual course of deal- ing with his creatures, — there would be nothing in- credible in the idea of any act or manifestation of power, necessarily consequent upon the end which we knew beforehand that God intended to Avork. The miracle, in such a case, would be merely the proof, that God had carried his foreknown purpose into execution. All that is presupposed in this reasoning, is the belief that a revelation of some kind was to be made. No one, who had entertained such a belief, would reject the revelation, if it was pro- posed, merely because it was attested by miracles ; or reject the miracles, merely because they were not such facts, as fall within the ordinary experience of mankind. It is plain that in the supposition here made, we have little or nothing to do, as I remarked in my 38 EFFECT OF A PRECEDING [LECT. last Lecture, with the cause from which the per- suasion may have arisen. I will suppose a total ignorance of that : the postulatum of the argument is the matter of fact : — that the event was cx'pectcd by mankind. There are some kinds of events depending so cer- tainly on pre-established causes, that the expectation of their happening would lead to no conclusion. But that is not the general character even of the com- monest historical facts ; and certainly a divine reve- lation is not a fact of that sort, but one quite beyond the province of any ordinary means of calculation. This then is the single limitation required. If the event in question be but of a kind, which no human wisdom could have conjectured, and which no com- bination of human art or power, could have brought about : its coming to pass, under such circumstances, agreeably to the explicit hope and belief of any large number of mankind, would in the case of a revelation demonstrate its divine authority. And it will be easy to show this, by taking the very cases, which Mr. Hume brings forward, as instances in which the proof of a divine interposition, would not be pos- sible. " Suppose, " says he, " all authors in all languages agree, that, from the first of January 1600, there was a total darkness over the wliolc earth for eight days : suppose that the tradition of this extraordinary event is still strong and lively among the people: that all travellers who return from other countries III.] EXPECTATION EXAMINED. 39 bring us accounts of the same tradition, without the least variation or contradiction : — it is evident that our present philosophers, insteadof doubting the fact, ought to receive it as certain, and ought to search for the causes whence it might be derived. The decay, corruption, and dissolution of nature, is an event rendered probable by so many analogies, that any phenomenon, which seems to have a tendency towards that catastrophe, comes within the reach of human testimony." In this passage we may ob- serve, that Hume grounds the credibility of the solu- tion he mentions, upon its antecedent probability ; and he prefaces the passage in the following words : " I beg the limitations here made may be remarked, when I say that a miracle can never be proved, so as to be the foundation of a system of religion. For I own that otherwise there may possibly be miracles, or violations of the usual course of nature, of such a kind as to admit of proof from human testimony, though perhaps it is impossible to find any such in all the records of history." — That is to say, that violations of the usual course of nature may happen, and may be proved on human testimony ; only they cannot be made the foundation of any religious belief; and that, if they should happen, such causes as he assigns would, in all cases, be more antece- dently probable, than the supposition of their having been intended to answer a divine purpose. In order to try this point,let us assume a divine pur- pose ; and suppose it to be an authoritative declaration 40 EFFECT OF A PRECEDING [lECT. from God, that, after the year 1600, " //e would no lonqer be worshipped in temples made with hands ; " — we will also suppose, that there was a belief prevailing among mankind, the origin of which could not be traced, that in the year named by Hume, as a sign of this divine purpose, a darkness such as he describes was to happen. Put the case, then, that proof could be adduced, showing that at the exact time when this extraordinary event was to take place, thousands of persons in different countries of the world, were all upon the tiptoe of expectation, earnestly watch- ing the event ; and that while this state of things was at its height, the sun and moon had gradually ceased to give their light, and had continued veiled in darkness, for the very time which the foreboding belief of mankind had oracularly indicated : let me ask whether Hume would still have persisted in his opinion, that " a miracle can never be proved so as to be the foundation of a system of religion ? " Or sup- posing that from the year 1600, many nations had actually entertained a belief, that God had com- manded them to worship him vmder the open canopy of heaven ; would he deem this opinion, so derived, a superstition ? But Hume proceeds to state another case, and one more incredible than that, which we have here considered. " Suppose," says he, " that all the histo- rians who treat of England should agree that, on the first of January 1600, Queen Elizabeth died; that, l)efore and after her death, she was seen by her III.] EXPECTATION EXAMINED. physicians, and her whole court, as persons of her rank ; that her successor -was acknow- ledged and proclaimed by the parliament; and that, after being interred a month, she again appeared, resumed the throne, and governed England for three years: — I must confess that I should be surprised at the concurrence of so many odd circumstances, but should not have the least inclination to believe so miraculous an event. I should not doubt of her pre- tended death, and of those other public circumstances that followed it. I should only assert it to have been pretended, and that it neither was, nor could be, real. You would in vain object to me the difficulty, and almost impossibility, of deceiving the w^orld in an affair of such consequence ; the w isdom and solid justice of that renowned queen ; with the little or no advantage she could gain from so poor an arti- fice. All this might astonish me ; but I would still reply, that the knavery and folly of men are such common phenomena, that I should rather believe the most extraordinary events to arise from their con- currence, than admit of so signal a violation of the laws of nature." I incline to think that Hume has rightly ex- pressed what, in the circumstances he has stated, w^ould be the conclusion of most persons of sound understanding. But let us try what would be the effect, if we connect the events which he has stated, with a supposed antecedent opinion among mankind. 42 EFFECT OF A PRECEDING [lECT. And first, let us amend the case, as here imagined. Queen Elizabeth is supposed dying in her bed, pri- vately, surrounded by her j)hysicians and court ; — that is, by her friends and dependents. But instead of Queen Elizabeth, let us substitute the name of Charles the First ; whose head was cut off before thousands of spectators, and whose executioners were his bitter enemies, or at least men who had a direct interest in his death. This alteration of the circumstances of the case, will bring it nearer to the one, which not improbably, was in Hume's mind at the time he was writing. Moreover, it renders the fact, to all appearance, more unequivocally mira- culous ; and therefore, no doubt, more impossible in itself, and more difficult to consider as having really happened. The case being thus assumed, let us suppose man- kind in general, in the year 1648, though other- wise enlightened and highly civilized, yet in the matter of religion, to have been immersed in igno- rance, as dark as that Avhich prevailed tln-oughout the world, in the days of Augustus. Suppose, further, that one nation there was, very numerous in itself, and individuals of which were to be found in almost all parts of the world, professing a purer form of religion ; among whom a rooted opinion was well known to prevail, that in the very generation we are speaking of, a revelation would be made to mankind by God, the effect of which would be, to subvert idolatry in the world, and to introduce a 5 III.] EXPECTATION EXAMINED. 43 new religion, in which the worship of the one true God, would form the leading feature. Let us sup- pose, finally, that when the surrounding people had inquired, what was to be the sign, by which the arrival of this epoch was to be known ? they had received for answer, that when the time had arrived, mankind would know it, by the king of England being put to death by the public executioner, and afterwards rising from the grave and resuming his throne. The question now is, whether, if this fact had happened ; or (which is nearly the same thing for all the purposes of the argument) if all mankind had believed it to have happened ; and if, dating from this belief of mankind, paganism immediately had begun to stagger, and had thence rapidly declined, and the worship of the alone true God had immediately begun to spread itself, by a simultaneous dispersion, over all the nations of the world, so as to have be- come, in the course of two or three generations, the predominant faith : — the question, I say, is whether, in these circumstances, Hume would think " the knavery and folly of mankind " the most probable explanation of the phenomena ? For my part, I feel inclined to think, that in such a case as has here been supposed, the most sceptical reasoner that ever lived would look about him, for some very different solu- tion ; and whether he found it or not, at least he would admit, that mankind in general would be content to receive the facts, as marked by the hand 44 EFFECT OF A PRECEDING [LECT. of God. Whatever may have been the incredulity, or even the contempt, with which the majority of persons in the world, would probably have regarded the expectation, on the part of a particular nation, of events so apparently impossible, as the rising of a person from the grave, and a consequent change in the religious opinions of the world : — whatever, I say, may have been the feelings, with which this persuasion might have been regarded befoi'ehand : yet, exactly in proportion to the previous incredulity of mankind, would be the effect which its fulfilment would pro- duce ; stamping the fact which Hume considers, and, in the circumstances stated by him, justly considers, as incredible, not only with the character of truth, but with the signature of divine authority. In fact, the supposition of a religion suddenly rising up in the world, out of a concurrence of such events as I have been assuming, without God's express per- mission, would be almost as unintelligible, as the theory of those ancient philosophers, who endeavoured to account for the creation of the world, by the for- tuitous concurrence of atoms. On a supposition, that the existence of a Supreme Being, had been demon- strated to be a thing impossible^ such a theory might perhaps claim to be heard ; but only on this sup- position. In like manner, supposing the idea of a divine revelation to have been convicted of absurdity, the hypothesis which would ascribe the origin of such an expectation, as I have been si)eaking of, to chance, and afterwards explain its fulfilment, by III.] EXPECTATION EXAMINED. 45 the same cause, might perhaps be as likely as any other: but the previous proposition, that the com- mon opinion involved a philosophical absurdity, would surely first require to be demonstrated. For, except a divine revelation be impossible, or (which is the same thing) incapable of proof by any evi- dence, the supposition of its truth, in the case just now stated, would unquestionably be attended with far fewer difficulties, and be less diametrically con- trary to our experience, than any other supposition that could be framed. 46 LECTURE IV. EFFECT AND USE OF PROPHECY, AS CONNECTED WITH THE EVIDENCE OF DIVINE REVELATION. In forming our judgment of the future, there are many events which we can foresee as credible and probable, which it would yet be very unwise to expect. We have, indeed, certain general rules and principles, upon which we may in some degree calculate, but they do not apply to contingent events. We know in what way the passions and interests of mankind will influence their conduct in various particular circumstances ; but, speaking of that class of facts which do not depend upon the human will, or upon human motives, but solely upon the will of God: here, it is not often that men speculate at all upon the future ; or if they do, it is merely as an exercise of their thoughts ; their hopes and wishes stop far short of expectation. We saw, in a preceding Lecture, that this last is a state of mind, quite distinct from what is called opinion ; and also, how important an influence it LECT. IV.] EFFECT AND USE OF PROPHECY. . 47 would exercise on the belief of mankind, in the case where we suppose a divine revelation, or a miracu- lous dispensation of any kind, to be the subject of discussion. I would now observe, that although it is upon the strength of the expectation itself, and not upon the strength of the reasons on which it was built, that the effect would depend ; yet, sup- posing those reasons to be solid, we should be able not only to explain the belief of mankind, but to demonstrate, that it was infallibly true. If we except the evidence of prophecy, real or pretended, I am not able to assign any way in which such an exj^ectation could spring up. It is possible there may be other ways ; but the question is not worth examining. We know that the belief of the i Gospel, was preceded by a belief in certain pro- phecies ; and it is the origin and authority of those prophecies which I am now especially about to con- sider. It will, however, be convenient, with a view \ to the full understanding of the argument, first / to fix in our minds some general rules and prin- \ ciples applicable to this particular sort of proof. / As it is a kind of evidence, not built upon abstract reasoning, nor upon experience, but upon considera- tions quite remote from all the ordinary sources of our knowledge, I shall not attempt to divide the y subject in a strictly logical way ; but be content to offer my thoughts in the best manner I am able, according to the order, in which they happen to pre- sent themselves to my mind. 48 . EFFECT AND USE [lECT. I observed just now, that when men reason about the future, their conjectures seldom extend to the anticipation of contingent events ; but only of such, as stand to each other, in some known relation of cause and effect. The reason is, that in the former, there are no rules by which our judgment can be guided./ We may indulge our fancy in random guesses ; but a man of sound understanding never believes that his fancies will come true. All this is too evident to be discussed. It will at once be ad- mitted, that the future is known only to God. Pre- dictions may come to pass by chance ; but if we take a case, from which this possibility is excluded, there is no explanation of prophecy, except that of divine inspiration, which it is possible to propose. Accordingly, if we turn to the treatise Do Natura Deorum, in which Cicero discusses the question of a Divine Providence, we find him making the Stoic rest his proof, of the being of a God, *and of his govern- ment of the world, on the science of divination ; as considering that to be a kind of knowledge, which could not exist at all, on a su})position of the world being governed by chance ; nor be attained by human wisdom without aid from the divine. He represents the Ej)icurcan, on the other hand, as rejecting, for the opposite reason, the popular belief altogether, because it presupposed the existence of a Supreme Being. It is on tlio same view of the subject, tliat Josephus commends the use of the Jewish Scriptures to the Gentiles. "By them," says lie, "may be re- IV.] OF PROPHECY. • 49 jected the Epicurean doctrine, which would exclude a God from the administratjon of human affairs ; for how," he observes, "is it possible that the event should correspond with the prediction, if things below were directed by chance, and not by a wise prescience ?" The ground of this conclusion does not, I think, require to be explained; but the reasoning from which it is drawn, is well stated by Cudworth in his Intellectual System, in a passage where he is dis- cussing the proof of a Divine Providence. "There is," he says, " a sort of presaging faculty, which may perhaps be supposed to proceed from the natural power of created spirits, whom we may believe to have larger understandings, and a wdder \ comprehension of things, and greater advantages of \ knowledge, than men possess ; but when events, remotely distant in time, and of which there are no immediate causes actually in being; which also depend upon many circumstances, and a long series of things, any one of which being otherwise, would alter the case ; as likewise upon much uncertainty of human volitions, which are not always necessarily linked and concatenated with what goes before, but often loose and free; and upon that contingency that arises from the indifferency or equality of eligi- bility in objects ; lastly, upon such things as do not at all depend upon external circumstances, neither are caused by things natural anteceding, but by some supernatural power: I say, when such future events E 50 EFFECT AND USE [lECT. as these are foretold, and accordingly come to pass, this can be ascribed to, no other, but to such a Being as comprehends, sways, and governs all ; and is, by a peculiar privilege or prerogative of his own nature, omniscient." This passage of Cudworth expresses, with much force and distinctness, the postulate upon which the proof of a legitimate prophecy dei)ends. It is not, we see, a mere happy or sagacious conjecture, which entitles the prediction of an event, to be dignified with this name ; but a prediction of facts, unconnected with existing causes or passing events ; and depending upon contingencies, such as human reason has never pretended to calculate. | Whether such prophecies have ever been delivered, or have ever come to pass, is not now the question. But, assuming this to be the hypothesis of the argument ; and supposing that we were about to consider, not any stated case, but only what sort of evidence, beyond any Avhich we know, would be most conclusive of a divine revelation ; and could be most easily demonstrated ; and might be provided, with least interruption to the prescribed course of things ; and would be spread with most facility over the widest range both of time and space : — I am prepared to show that there is none, whether natural or preternatural, of which we have any information, that would combine all these objects to the same extent or degree, as this of prophecy : — no miracle, therefore, which, sup- posing a divine revelation, would be more likely to 5 IV.] OF PROPHECY. 51 have been employed by God; or to the employ- ment of which, there would be so few speculative objections. In examining the use which is made of the argu- ment from prophecy, by writers upon the Evidences, it is for the most part impossible to discern the exact place which it is made to hold: a remark which will apply as pointedly to Paley as to any one. So far as I have observed, the use of pro- phecy is commonly regarded, not as an integral part of the Evidences, but as a sort of supplemental proof, which is over and above what the argument really requires. Accordingly, the evidence from miracles is always so stated, as if it were com- plete in itself, and needed no collateral support. I shall not stop to examine this position. It may or may not be true, in the present state of Christi- anity ; but assuredly it was not true of Christianity, before it was established. I. In the proof of a miracle, as we have already partly seen, and as I shall hereafter have occa- sion to show more at large, the point of the argu- ment, where some collateral evidence, over and above a proof of the facts, must be produced, is in the link, which should connect the testimony of the witnesses to what they saw, with the truth of that, which is only their opinion. Did the fact really happen ? That may be proved, we will sup- pose, on their affirmation. But if we go on to ask. How did it happen ? By what power or authority ? e2 52 EFFECT AND USE [LECT. For what purpose ? These are not questions to be determined on the oath of witnesses as to what was their opinion and belief, but on the reasons they may be able to allege. And their reasons must be drawn, not ex parte rei, as logicians express it; that is, not from the nature of the facts ; but ecV parte eHerni, or from what is termed circumstantial evidence. Now there is little difficulty in stating where this extraneous evidence is to be sought in the case of miracles, which we suppose to have happened five hundred years ago. — For what professed end were they performed? What was the character of the end proposed? Was it accomplished ? — The answer to these questions would enable us to determine, whether the miracles were the effect of human agency or not. But in the case where we are examining the meaning and character of facts, happening before our eyes, no appeal of this sort is possible. The testimony of experience is here necessarily wanting ; and if we should appeal to reason, all we could do, would be to take up Butler's argument; and show that our explanation of the facts was con- formable to what we know of God's natural govern- ment of tlie world. But if wc would see how little use could be made of such a mode of reasoning in the case I am now stating ; suppose that the Apostles had been confined to this resource. Is it to be thought that mankind would have believed in the divine authority of the miracles wrought by Christ, from the mere analogy IV.] OF PROPHECY. 53 of his doctrines with certain deep and refined spe- culations? In the present day, indeed, Butler's argument is triumphant ; because it is in answer to those who assert that the doctrines of Christianity are incredible and absurd. This way of thinking can be directly met, only by a metaphysical argu- ment. But in a case where we suppose ourselves to be examining, not into the truth of abstract objections, but into the cause of a stated fact, and the end for which it was designed : — to propose an explanation, the proof of which, is not drawn out of the fact itself, but from theoretical data of any kind whatever, would be worse than useless. It is here then, at the place where the testimony of witnesses can yield us no assistance, and where reason can offer nothing but conjecture, that the necessity arises for that peculiar help, which prophecy is able to afford. II. The next remark which I have to propose, is a sort of corollary from the preceding. As the proper use of prophecy is, — not to prove the truth of facts, but only to explain them : it is not necessary, in this view, that the event should be of an extraordinary kind, or one which supposes a deviation from the laws of nature. Be the event what it may, if it can clearly be proved to have been predicted ; it becomes on this supposition, at once a miracle. I will illustrate this by an example, which will assist in explaining my meaning better, perhaps, than a general proposition can do. •'54 EFFECT AND USE [LECT. Ill a review by Le Clerc, quoted by Jortin from the Bibl. Anc. et Mod., where the former is examining the proofs of a Divine Providence, we are told, "that in the number of providential interpositions, supposing the fact to be true, might be placed what happened on the coasts of Holland and Zealand, the 14th July 1672. The United Provinces having ordered public prayers to God, when they feared that the French and English fleets would make a descent on their coasts, it came to pass that when these fleets waited only for a tide to land from their smaller vessels, it was retarded, contrary to the usual course, for twelve hours, which disappointed the design ; so that the enemies were obliged to defer it to another oppor- tunity, which they never found, because of a storm, which arose afterwards and drove them from the coast. A thing of this nature, happening at such a conjuncture to save the country from ruin, was ac- counted miraculous; and a prediction of it," ob- serves Le Clerc, " would have proved it to be so. However, as nothing falls out without the Divine con- currence, there was great reason to return God thanks for the deliverance. In the history of other nations, events of this kind are recorded, which, if thc)j had ' been foretold, must have been accounted real mi- racles." / ' '■ ■' ■'/ • '■''.—■■ ' ^^-e>^»— i /:- According to this narrative, it is plain, that the safety of Holland was in fiict effected by the storm which drove the combined fleets from the coast, much more than by the delay of the tide. This last IV.] OF PROPHECY. 55 would seem, prima facie, to have been only an acci- dental occurrence. Nevertheless, supposing it to be true, it was an unusual occurrence; and if the disper- sion of the combined fleet had been the subject of a prophecy, with the circumstance of this particular fact, of the delay of the tide, appended, in order to exclude the supposition of its having come true by chance: — the majority of mankind, in that case, would rightly have considered the predicted tempest, to have been the effect of a miraculous interposition. Much, however, depends upon the truth of the fact about the tide, which Le Clerc evidently does not mean to vouch for. The tempest, by itself, might be ascribed to chance; but if predicted, in concurrence with another independent event, such a supposition be- comes excluded ; and the miraculousness of the pro- vidence, by which Holland was preserved, would not, in such a case, be doubted by mankind. It is clear from this instance, that the most or-| dinary event might, in this way, be made to wear al miraculous aspect. It is the tacit supposition of a divine interposition, which constitutes a miracle; and not our ignorance of the causes from which it pro- ceeded. The destruction of Babylon, extraordinary as the circumstances connected with it appear to have been, presents itself to us in the pages of He- \ rodotus, simply as a great historical event ; but it wears a very different aspect, as related in the Old Testament. The prophecies which preceded its capture and desolation, (if we believe them to have 56 EFFECT AND USE [LECT. been written in the age which they pretend, and to have been correctly interpreted,) by connecting its overthrow with the immediate agency of God, give it a character, which is quite distinct from that which , we attribute to the destruction of Carthage, or the / capture of Syracuse. III. /Another pecuharity to be noticed in the nature of prophecy, — and by which it is advan- tageously distinguished from every other kind of miracle — regards the ease by which its pretensions to truth may be determined! If a passage was found in Holingshed's Chronicle, stating that he had seen a prophecy, in which it was foretold, that in the year 1900 the throne of England would be filled by a queen, who would die, in the last day of the year, of a slow consumption : strange as it would be, if the event should happen — yet those living at the time would have no difficulty in ascertaining either the authenticity of the prophecy, or the fact of its fulfil- ment. , Again, in the case of prophecy — and viewing this ! evidence in the abstract — the question may easily be ' cleared of all suspicion of fraud or collusion, or con- / trivance of any sort. . In the instance where the pre- diction preceded the event, by a long interval of years, such an explanation would be excluded by the very terms of the hypothesis. But even in the case, where the event is to come to pass, within the lifetime of those, to whom the prediction is delivered : if we only suppose the fulfilment of it to depend upon IV.] OF TROPIIECY. 67 events, over which human agents can confessedly exercise no control, — all the rest is a matter easy to be determined ; depending upon the truth of facts, about which there need be no difference of opinion. Supposing the meaning of the prophecy to be quite clear and unambiguous, and to refer to an event about which, if it happened, there could be no mistake; two points only, and those very easy of proof, would require to be ascertained : — the date of the pre- diction, and the truth of the event. But even in the case where the sense of the words, in which the prophecy was expressed, is obscure and doubtful : yet if it was delivered from the first as a prophecy and received by mankind as such; and was expected by them to be fulfilled in a particular sense : then that particular sense, is the only point which we have to consider. If the prophecy was fulfilled, agree- ably to the sense, which was put upon it by those who were living before the event ; and in conformity with the ewpedation excited in their minds ; (for this it is upon which, as I before explained, the force of the evidence depends ;) then it must pass for a divine testimony. People afterwards may argue upon the words, and shew that they mifjJit have had another meaning; but if the meaning, put upon them by mankind from the beginning, came to pass : that determines the controversy. It is not the conformity of the event with certain articulate sounds which constitutes the miracle ; but its conformity with the >^ 68 t. ''^^ '"^ EFFECT AND USE ^ >, [lect. 1 •^-«- , rV/.^ antecedent hopes and opinions, of those who were looking forward to this proof. ^/ This is a remark, which I mention as of great eon- sequence to be borne in mind. It is one, to which I shall have frequent occasion to revert hereafter; and ^f^/*~^'^iA which a very important use will be made, when I come to examine the principles, on which many of ^y;, the Jewish prophecies, will require to be inter- preted. IV. A fourth advantage which the evidence of ( prophecy presents, over every other kind of miracle, / is, that it interferes not in any way, either with the liberty of human actions, or any settled law of na- / ture. /But more particularly it is in this respect )C superior : — that the proof of other miracles depends upon the report of witnesses, who were present at : the transactions ; that is, upon an evidence, not only 1 1 weak and fallible in many points, but which is re- stricted to a particular spot, as well as to a single / age : — whereas, prophecy is a proof, which is able to stand alone ; and without any circumstantial limita- tions. It relies not upon the judgment, or opinion, , or senses of mankind ; it is not necessarily confined ) to the people of one generation; nor does it lose any I part of its force, by the lapse of time./ Supposing the present dispersion of the Jews, to have been the subject of a distinct prediction, it aftbrds as conclu- sive a j)roof of the divine inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures in the present day, as it did a thousand IV.] OF PROPHECY. 59 years ago ; and this, through all the nations of the world. But this evidence is not only complete in itself, without any collateral support — either from general reasoning or from other subsidiary miracles ; but moreover, it carries along with it, its own interpre- tation ; that is to say, not only is the impress of divine authority, visibly stamped upon the very hypo- thesis of this proof; but it may be so contrived, as to explain at the same time, the end and purpose for which it was intended. For example : — supposing the fact of the captivity of the Jews in Babylon, to have been declared many years beforehand, though not listened to by them or their rulers : — in that case, their subjugation was the effect of a miraculous interposition ; that is, it was an especial act of Divine Providence, and must have been so considered by the nation. But the cause of it, might nevertheless have been concealed; and if so, it could not have been divined by any help from mere signs and wonders. Supposing however the account which we find in the Old Testament, of this great event, to be true ; and that the calamity had really been fore-denounced, as a judgment upon the Jews for their obstinate idolatry ; on this supposition, the reason of their punishment must have been as well known to them, as was the hand, by which it was inflicted. And such, judging from the history, appears to have been the fact. For that, which the ^ /*, 60 EFFECT AND USE [LECT. renieiiibrance of all God's miracles in Egypt had failed to effect, seems to have been accomplished, by this signal example of the Divine power and dis- pleasure ; so much so, that the Jewish people are thenceforth described, as having never again fallen into idolatry. This is the statement of the fact, as recorded in Scripture. Whether true or false, it is consistent with itself, and with every thing that we know of human nature. There is therefore, I may observe, no ground for the remark insinuated by Bolinbroke and repeated by Gibbon, that the many previous lapses of the nation, inii3lied a disbelief of the wonders ^vrought by Moses." The fact only shows, how strong is the effect, which a clear case of prophecy is calculated, in certain circumstances, to produce upon the imagination of mankind. Other gods, besides the God of their fathers, could work (so the Jews would appear to have believed) signs and wonders ; but their long fore-warned captivity in Babylon, and the subsequent fulfilment of their promised return to their own home and country, afforded a proof so un- equivocal, of the over-ruling and omnipotent Power, to which they, as a nation, were subject, as seems to have dispelled thenceforth all idolatrous illusions for ever from their minds. And if what is related in the Bible be true, they reasoned justly ; the miracles wrought ])y Moses, according to the notions of man- kind in that age, did not demonstrate that the God ^/^yt-»!Lift-^ A^^t-#Ow^"tf— J^x*— ^^*^' x'Ve.- ^^ -^'' - A ^rV. .-^ > ?^^^' 70 ON THE AUTHENTICITY [lECT. volume, by a comparison with other accounts; it is only from internal marks that any argument can be drawn.' Prima facie, no doubt, the extraordinary character of the events, with which the Jewish part of the history is filled, would detract from the general credit of the writers. But putting this ob- jection aside, and speaking only of style and manner, there are no writings of antiquity, not even those of Homer himself, so indelibly stamped with the fea- tures of truth. Literary forgeries belong to a literary age ; and not to a state of manners, such as we may suppose to have existed at Babylon or Jerusalem, 600 years before Christ. Omitting this, however, it may be safely said, that if there be a history in the world free from every imputation, or even surmise of forgery or fiction, as arising out of any perceptible design, on the part either of the historian or the nation, it is the Jewish. Abounding as it does, beyond all others, in wonders and apparent improba- bilities, and in subjects fitted to feed that spirit of national boasting which seems inherent in human nature, yet when such events are recorded in the Old Testament, it seems to be without any end which we can assign, except the simple purpose, of placing the wickedness of the nation in a more conspicuous light, j In the victories of the Jews, no mention is ever made of the prowess of the soldiers, or the skill of the commander ; in their defeats, it is never attempted to extenuate the V.J OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 71 disgrace. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, I do not recollect one word which can be construed, as the language of national vanity ; while there is hardly a page, in which some passage is not to be found, humiliating to this feeling. A more dark and unfavourable portraiture, than that which the Jewish people have preserved of themselves, has never since been drawn of any nation, even by its enemies. And yet, painful and disagreeable as the likeness is, this history has been preserved by them, even to the present time, with an anxiety and solicitude which, without a knowledge of their re- ligious opinions, would not be easily explained, even if we suppose it to be true. But if we suppose it to be untrue, and that the events described in it never really happened, this will only change the difficulty ; it will not solve the problem. Whether the Pentateuch was written by Moses, or by some one living in a more recent age, is a question which, when once raised, cannot, from the nature of things, be determined on the common principles of criticism. But the important question \ is, were the events, related in the Pentateuch, be- lieved from the beginning by the people, among j whom they are described as having happened ? If they were not, then how are we to account for their submission to those very burthensome institutions which, if we may trust that book, were founded on a belief of the facts there related, and on that belief alone ? -" • ^ / . ->/ ^^ >- 72 ON TOE AUTHENTICITY [lECT. Suppossing the truth of these facts, they must necessarily have been witnessed, not by the relater alone, whoever he was, but by the whole multitude of persons who followed Moses into the wilderness. If they were not true, it is plain that there is no middle sup])osition : The whole history, from be- ginning to end, must have been not only an inven- tion, but an invention many ages posterior to the asserted date of the transactions ; because, if they had taken place, the memory of them would not have passed away in one, nor in two, nor in three generations ; and the first beginning of their being believed must be referred to some period long posterior. This belief must, however, have had a beginning ; and, therefore, the question has been often asked, but never answered by those who reject the book of Exodus — at what time shall we date its origin ? ^^ , The difficulty here proposed, is also increased by ~ ( another consideration : — If the facts related in the Pentateuch did not really happen, how are we to \ account for the origin of the social and religious in- / stitutions of the Jews ? By what possible means, \ under any conceivable construction of circumstances, / and at any after-period whatever, the whole Jewish \ people should have been brought to credit so mar- vellous a narrative, relating to their own immediate nation and country, (supposing it to have been a mere fiction,) is far from easy to imagine : but that they / should have been persuaded to change their manners. v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. f// and customs, and ways of life, and modeB^^f worship, \ T at any such after-period; and to adopt ai),. entirely new code of laws, with respect to every on« of these particulars, in consequence of their sudden belief in facts, then and there for the first time heard of, and which were not pretended to have been wrought among tjiemselves, but.amons their aocestors rnany hundred years backj: this ignvcterly incomprehensible. It would be an extraordinary moral phenomenon on any hypothesis ; even if the laws they had agreed to, be supposed mild and easy. But on the contrary, these laws are of an opposite character. They are not, like those we are accustomed to read of among other nations, intended merely to regu- late, with a view to the general welfare, the conduct of individuals in their intercourse with each other, as members of a body politic. They are not few and simple, shortly learned and easily explained ; but, according to the statements of the learned among the Jews, they amount to more than 600 precepts ; of which the greater part, do not affect the interests of the community at large, have no relation to mu- tual rights, but are strictly personal sacrifices ; some of them as irksome as if they had been intended to be penal ; while a large proportion of the remainder admit of no explanation, on any ground of expe- diency; and can by no possibility be enjoined as duties, except on the principle, of implicit obedience to the supposed command, of some absolute and irresistible power. # /* c- lA T Al ^fY ^C ^^ ^"^ AUTHENTICITY ['XJECJi ^^ ^ Now if/ we receiv^iiie 'Jewish Scriptures as an autlientic document, this particular difficulty is at once removed. Tf the miracles ascribed to IVIoses, whether rightly or wrongly, were believed by those who were his contemporaries : however hard it may be to account for such belief or for the facts them- selves-^t will not be hard to account for the acqui- escence of the Jews, of after ages, in the laws which he imposed and which they found established. But if the facts, on the authority of which the laws were submitted to, neither happened nor were believed to have happened, until many generations after : in this case, the conduct of the Jews must have been based upon such unintelligible principles of reasoning, such a total confusion of ideas, as no ingenuity can pretend to unravel. For let us put the case here supposed, and judge of it by our own experience : and for this purpose, in- stead of the Jewish, let us substitute the laws of the Christian code. These last, are all of them confessedly agreeable to reason, and to the feelings of the wiser and better part of the world, as being plainly cal- culated to promote the peace and happiness of man- kind ; and, therefore, strict as they may be, and in some respects hard to practise, it will nevertheless be admitted, that it would be an easier task to persuade individuals, or a whole nation, to bend their necks to the authority of Christ, than to the severe yoke of the Jewish ritual. But what, lot me ask, would be the success of a Christian missionary, preaching among v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 75 the New Zealanders, or any barbarous and idolatrous people, if as an argument for submitting to the pre- cepts of the Gospel, he were to tell them, that the miracles recorded of Christ had been worked among themselves in the time of their forefathers ; and were even to go so far, as to appeal to their own memories and consciences, for the truth of what he said ? Surely such an appeal would be thought akin to madness. Whatever difficulty there might be, in persuading a people, who had never heard of Christ, to believe in the miracles ascribed to him, it would not be diminished, but very greatly increased, if it was also attempted to make them believe, that they had been wrought in their own country; and more- over that the precepts in question, though never heard of before, were the very laws which their fore- fathers had handed down to them. Such, however, is precisely the hypothesis which we find in the Old Tes- tament. Whether we take up the historical, or the prophetical, or the devotional parts of the volume — the wonders which God wrought for their fathers in Egypt, is the one topic always urged upon the Jews, as the foundation of their duty to obey the com- mandments which he then gave them. But if these wonders never happened, and had never before been believed to have happened : — was the nation out of its senses, or were the writers ; that the former should have been induced to listen, or the latter have hoped to persuade, by such an argument? If indeed we were at liberty to believe, not only Y \.>C-<^ 76 ON THE AUTHENTICITY [LECT. that the facts described in the Pentateuch never happened ; but that the laws themselves, which we suppose to have rested upon them, were never really received by the Jews — the reasoning would cohere. But the testimony of history is peremptory on this point ; or even if it were silent, the present existence of the Jews affords a living proof, not only of the general reality of the history contained in the Old Testament, but of an attachment to the laws and institutions described in it, such as there is no example of, in the history of any other people upon record. " All other nations," says Philo, writing while Jerusalem was yet standing ', " that have pos- sessed codes of laws, have changed them, at times, in various particulars. Wars, foreign and domestic, and other adverse circumstance^, or else luxury and the love of change, or even prosperity itself, have occasioned the institutions of most nations, to vary with the varying condition of the people for whom they were intended. But the Jewish law," says he, " has not been changed so much as in one particular, since the time of its first promulgation. It alone has continued firm and unmoved, as if stamped with the signature of nature herself. And although no other people have endured so many afflictions as the Jewish; nor been exposed, in an equal degree, to every vicissitude of good or bad fortune — yet not one single iota {ov^tv ouSe twv ^iKpoTtpoiv), has been cancelled or ' De Vita Mosis, lib. ii. v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 77 annulled. Neither hunger, nor pestilence, nor wars, nor kings, nor tyrants ; neither sedition, nor any evil, either of divine or human infliction, have been able to supersede the attachment of the Jewish people to the commandment of their fathers, or to tempt them from the observance of it." In these remarks, I have confined myself simply to the truth of the great leading facts, related in the book of Exodus. I have not entered upon the question about the authorship of that, or the other books ascribed to Moses. Supposing these books to be true, and to have been written at the time they pretend, no important conclusion would be affected, by the supposition that the writer of them was unknown. That some changes of names and other-^ slight verbal additions may have crept into the text, from marginal notes or the errors of transcribers, is probable ; it would be a miracle if they had not ; but that the five first books of the Old Testament, be the i date of them what it may, or be the author of them who he may, are not forgeries, but genuine compo- sitions — is a matter about which I cannot understand how a/doubt should exist, in the mind of any man of ordm^ry taste and knowledge. As far as language, • sentiment, and composition afford the means of judg-( ing, they are the very coinage of truth itself. It ] is the miraculous character of the history, which ■ ' alone could have suggested a suspicion about its authenticity. -"^ But the belief of the Jews them- selves in the reality of the events, up to the very 78 ON THE AUTHENTICITY [lECT. time when they are described as happening, is a fact so mixed up with all their feelings, and opi- nions, and institutions, that the supposition of the truth of the history, is the only key we have to explain the case : reject this supposition, and ques- tions will arise on every side, which we shall vainly attempt to resolve. It would be easy to extend these remarks, and by a comparison of the books among each other, in the way which Paley has adopted with so much success, in his Horae Paulinse, to prove their authen- ticity by marks of another kind. But this task has been ably performed by others ; and it is besides not necessary to the present argument. As I am now about to enter upon a consideration of the Prophecies of the Old Testament, it seemed ne- cessary to say something of the authenticity of the book in which they are found ; and I have done so, in deference to this supposed necessity ; but how- ever important it may be, on other accounts, to de- monstrate the historical credibility of the Jewish Scriptures, yet the questions at issue belong to other departments of theology ; they have no logical con- nection with theEvidences of the Christian Revelation. The credibility of the historical parts of the Jewish Scriptures is only important to us, inasmuch as from the frequent allusions to them in the New Testa- ment, the authority of the latter may seem to stand pledged for their veracity. But the truth or false- hood of the history of the New Testament itself. v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 79 depends upon proofs quite independent of the mi- racles performed by Moses. Supposing these last to be true, and the books in which they are recorded, to have been written under the sanction of divine authority, it well becomes Christians to meditate upon this part of the Old Testa- ment, with a view to general edification. But the con- n nection of the Christian with the Jewish covenant must be sought, not in the miracles, nor in the historical parts generally of the ancient Scriptures, but in the types and prophecies which they contain. These v have been incorporated with the history of the Jews, partly, perhaps, in order to keep them alive in the memory and belief of mankind; but ex- cept for this or some similar reason, it would not affect any part of the argument on which the pre- sent belief of Christianity is founded, if the historical books of the Old Testament had not been handed down to us at all. We may soon satisfy ourselves that this is so, by examining any work upon the Evidences, eithei- by recent writers or by the ancient apologists. In none do we find that any part of the argument is ever drawn from the facts contained in the Jewish Scriptures. Sometimes allusion is made to the New Testament, as confirming the divine authority of the Old ; but I am acquainted with no writer, who has adduced the wonders which God wrought by the hand of Moses, in proof of the miracles ascribed to Christ. It is the adversary of Christi- 5 80 ON THE AUTHENTICITY [lECT. anity who commonly appeals to the Old Testament ; this being the side on which he deems the evidence to be weakest. The effect has often been, to excite alarm in pious minds, without, however, in the least affecting the subject-matter in debate. A moment's consideration must shew us, that the truth of the Mosaic miracles is one question, and that of the Christian, quite another. And as it is not fair on the one side, so neither is it wise on the other, to treat them as if they were indissolubly united ; to make the New Testament " answer with its life," as Paley expresses it, " for every fact recorded in the Old." I do not mean to suggest any doubt about the credibility of the last ; but it must necessarily be more easy for us to demonstrate the miracles, upon which the truth of Christianity is built, than those, upon which the Jew supports his faith. And since the former might easily be true, even though we supposed the latter to be without any reasonable proof, they ought upon every principle to be re- garded as two separate questions. Our Saviour often alludes to points of Jewish history; but it is ) only to the " Law and the Prophets" that he refers ( as " they that testify of him." Accordingly there can be no reason why we should not confine our 1 argument within the same limitation ; especially as it will greatly narrow the field of controversy ; and connect the proof of Christianity with those parts only of the Old Testament, which are not open to v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 81 debate ; but which rest upon facts as easy to be ascertained, and as little depending upon mere conjecture, as any point of history that I am ac- quainted with. No reader of discernment can open the Old Testament, and not immediately see, that the books comjDosing it, are not by one and the same hand. The original distinctions of style have been a good deal concealed, by the dress under which the lan- guage appears in our translation ; but even with this disadvantage, every one jDorceives that the author of Isaiah did not compose the Psalms ; nor the writer of the Pentateuch, the books of Kings and Chronicles. But whether those several books were composed a thousand years before Christ, or only six hundred ; whether they are the works of those whose names they bear, or of authors altogether unknown, are points of no importance to the question of the divine inspiration, under which the Jews believed tliem to have been written, so long as, leaving the historical parts, we confine our atten- tion to the prophecies which they contain. /^We know that these prophecies, whether real \ or pretended, are written in a language, which, at the time to which the fulfilment of them refers, had been a dead lano^uaofe more than ,five hundred years. It is absolutely certain that a , translation of them is now extant, which was executed three hundred years before the same period. These are facts not to be disputed. The only questions, then, G ^^ 82 ON THE AUTHENTICITY [LECT. respecting them, which concern the trutli of Christ- ianity are easily stated, and admit of a simple deter- ; mination : — Were these prophecies distinctly an- nounced as predictions of future events, at the time when they were delivered ? Were they believed to be prophecies, by those among whom they were preserved ? Were they understood in any specified sense, general or particular ? Were they, in process of time, substantially fulfilled ? that is, Did the event or events come to pass, according to the interpre- tation, which the previous expectation of the Jews, had fixed upon them ? / Supposing these questions to be answered in the affirmative, it will readily be seen, that all other questions sink into insignificance. — Who were the authors of the several books, in which these pro- phecies are written ? In what precise year were ' they uttered ? Whether this or that, rather than the sense which actually was put upon them, would / have been the more natural construction ? — All \ these become questions simply of critical curiosity. If it can be proved, that they were written many generations before the date of their supposed fulfil- ment ; if they came to pass in the sense which was put upon them, before that period ; and if the events predicted were such, as no human knowledge could have foreseen, nor any human art or power have produced : — in this case, these prophecies were writ- ten by divine inspiration; and all the events which form tlie subject-matter of them — and that great v.] OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. 83 event, more especially, to which they all pointed, and in which they ultimately merged — were brought about by the direct interposition of a Divine Au- thority. I have stated the case hypothetically, not as what is true, but as what would be true, and would be so considered, in the circumstances supposed. But whether true or not, if mankind had been persuaded to believe, that the case actually was, as I have here stated ; that is to say, if they had admitted the pre- mises here assumed, the conclusion would have been as irresistible, as if it had been deduced from ma- thematical principles. If any error was committed, we must seek for it in the premises from which they reasoned, and not in the reasoning itself. Let us then proceed to examine these pre- mises in detail, and see what the evidence was, on which the belief of their truth was founded. The determination of this question involves no opinion about speculative points, but regards only a matter of fact ; the proof of which (if there be one) may be as easily stated and explained, as that of any proposition whatever which depends upon historical testimony. G 2 LECTURE VI. OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS OF THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES. MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. The object of the preceding remarks was to shew, that if we assume the prophetical parts of the Old Testament to have been written many generations before the date of their supposed fulfilment ; and that they came to pass, in the very sense which was put upon them by the Jews themselves, and had been put upon them, long before the appearance of Chris- tianity in the world : — in that case, this religion must have been a revelation from God. After what has been said, I do not think this conclusion will be contested ; but whether now contested or not, it is certain, that supposing the premises to have been established, it would not have been contested in LECT. VI.] OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 85 the days of tlie Apostles. It is, moreover, certain, that it was on the assumption of these premises being true, that the Apostles rested the whole weight of their preaching. In a former Lecture, I had occasion to refer to a chapter of Paley, in which he shews that neither St. Peter nor St. Stephen in the Acts, nor St. Paul in any of his Epistles, have alluded to miracles as the ground of their belief; nor, indeed, except on a very few occasions, have alluded to them at all. The fact is dwelt upon by Paley, at some length ; but it is observable, that after discussing the silence of the Apostles on this part of the Evi- dences, and stating the reasons of it, he does not go on to notice the proofs, on which they actually did place the argument. He tells us that the Apostles took for granted, that the miracles ascribed to Christ were known to all their hearers ; but he does not add, that the medium of proof by which they endeavoured to demonstrate, that those miracles had God for their author, was altogether drawn from the prophecies of the Old Testament. Tliis fact, however, is so plain a feature in the New Testament, that it may seem to be a waste of time to demonstrate it ; because no one can doubt it, who is acquainted with the history of the Apostles or their writings. The Apostles do not go about to establish the authenticity of the Jewish Scriptures, nor to shew their prophetical character. These points they take for granted, as matters, which none of 86 OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. [lECT. those with whom they had to reason, would for a moment call in question. The invariable purport of all their arguments, the end which they kept be- fore them, in whatever they said or wrote, was to })rove, that the subject of all the various prophecies ] with which those Scriptures were filled, was the Gospel which they preached ; and, so far as a})pears, ^ this only it was which the Jews denied. How clear the Apostles believed this proof to be, and how superior to every other, is exemplified in the Second Epistle of St. Peter ; where, having alluded to the transfiguration of Christ, at which he, and James, and John Avere present, when there " came a voice," as he says, "from the excellent glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 7 pleased :" he immediately adds, " but we have a more sure word of prophecy." The truth of the transfigura- tion depended on the testimony only of two or three witnesses ; and the voice which they had heard from heaven, might have been an illusion of the senses ; but the testimony of prophecy, which he compares to " a light shining in a dark place," (as throwing its beams into futurity, and making clear what must otherwise have remained hidden from human know- ledge,) did not, as St. Peter intimates, dejiend on his veracity, or that of St. John, or St. James ; Ijut on a proof, about which there could be no deception; the authority of which was admitted equally on all sides. I am jiow merely stating the reasoning (»f tlic VI.] OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 87 Apostles. It would be easy to exemplify what I have said from passages without number; but the matter is too clear to require a detailed illustration. If there are any doubts, the means of settling them are in every one's hands. And could I take for granted, that the writings of those who succeeded the Apostles, were as familiarly known as the Christ- ian Scriptures, it would be unnecessary to dwell any longer on the point. But, if we except professed students of divinity, few persons are probably aware, that the early Fathers do not, any more than the writers of the New Testament, rest their argument upon the miracles of Christ. The earliest Christian writings, after those con- tained in the New Testament, are a collection of short pieces, by the cotemporaries, or immediate successors of the Apostles ; making together a small volume under the title of the Apostolical Fathers. That these writings, whether authentic or not, are of Apostolic antiquity, is generally admitted. But they are purely hortatory, and do not refer to questions which concern unbelievers ; and for this reason they throw but little light upon the evi- dences. The same is likewise true in a greater or less degree of Irenaeus, Cyprian, Epiphanius, and others among the early Fathers. Their wiitings, having been composed for the exclusive use of Christians, or for the refutation of heresies, give us no knowledge of the arguments employed for the conversion of Jews or Pagans; but only of the 88 OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. [LECT. state of the Church, and of the doctrines and dis- cipline maintained by its members. The works of that age which concern the present inquiry, are those which were composed, either in defence of the Gospel, or against heathenism. Confining ourselves then to such writers of this last class, as were born within the two or three first cen- turies from the death of Christ, the names which pre- sent themselves, are those of Justin INIartyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Origen, Lactantius, and Arnobius. Except Origen, all of these appear to have been originally heathens ; and the first observation which I have to make is, that while all of them, either expressly or by necessary implication, attribute their own conversion to the study of the Old Testa- ment; not one, if we except Arnobius, appeals to the miracles, as the proof of Christ's divine authority. They mention the miracles among other facts, as substantiating this conclusion ; but the conclusion itself, they rest upon the fulfilment of the pro- j)hecies, instanced in the progress made by the religion which he introduced. There are other writers of the same age, of whom fragments re- main ; such as Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus. Their testimony is less decisive, but as far as it goes, it will lengthen the list of witnesses to the fact T am here alleging. In Justin's first apology, there is a long and ela- borate statement, in which he produces, through se- vl] opinions of the fathers. 89 veral consecutive chapters, the various passages of the Old Testament, in which the person of Christ, and the doctrines which he taught, and the success of his preaching, are foreshown. And he prefaces the statement in the following words : " Lest any one should object that there is nothing to hinder, but that he who is called Christ among us, should have been only a man, and born of a man; and have worked by magical arts those wonders which we attribute to miraculous powers, (^a-yt/cy reyvy ag Xs-yojLtEv Suvojuag TreTrotrj/cevai :) and therefore, consider him to have been the Son of God ; we will pro- ceed to shew, that our opinions are not founded on what persons have said, but on the neces- sity of believing that which was foretold before it came to pass ; inasmuch as we have witnessed, and do still witness with our own eyes, the fulfil- ment of those predictions : which is a demonstration which I think will appear even to you, most true and certain \" I am not aware of any passages in the writings of TertuUian or Origen, directly ascribing the proof of the divine authority of the miracles of Christ, to the pro- phecies relating to him, as Justin would seem to do in the above extract ; but abundance may be adduced, in which the argument rests solely on this single testi- mony ; while I do not remember a case in which it > Apol. I. §. 30. 90 OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. [LECT. is made to rest on the former. In more places than one. Oriofen charofes Celsus with unfairness in his objections against the miracles of Christ, because he must have known, says he, that it was not from them, that the Christians drew their proof of his divine authority, but from the prophecies of the Old Testament: — ovk oiB ottwc to /.dyicxTOv Trept TTfQ avaraatioi; tov I»/(tou Kurai, log on Trooe^rjrtu^/; vtto T(ov irapa lov^a'ioig Trpo^ijrtuv, it a pair 'mirzi e/cwv. A still more remarkable passage, however, to the same purpose is to be found in Lactantius, in the fifth Book of his Div. Inst. c. 3. " But Apol- lonius, it is said, never gave himself out to be Sk~ god, on account of the miracles which he wrought : — assuredly not. Nor should we have believed Christ to have been a God, had he merely per- formed miracles. But learn, that we do not be- lieve him to have been God, solely for this reason ; but because we have seen all things fulfilled in him, which the prophets have foretold. He did miracles, it is true ; and we should have supposed him to have been a magician (as you now think, and as the Jews formerly thought,) if all the pro- phets, with one consent, had not predicted that he would do such things." — ''■ Disce iffitur, si quid tibi coQ'di est, 11071 solum idcirco a nobis Deum crediUnn Christum, quia mirabilia fecit, scd quia o'ediimis in CO facta esse omnia qua' nobis communicata sunt rati- cinia Prophetarum. Fecit mirabilia : maqum pufas- VI.] OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. 91 semits, ut et vos nunc putatis et Judcei tunc putaverunt, si non ilia ipsa facturum Christum, Prophetfe omnes uno spiritu prcedicasserit" St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom lived too late to be brought as witnesses in the question ; but their opinion is of weight as a confirmative authority. And as the point I am now illustrating, has no reference to the value of the proof from mi- racles, compared with that from prophecy, abstract- edly considered, but only to the question, — What was the relative place which was assigned to the Old and New Testament, in the view taken of the Evidences, in the early ages of the Church ? — there is a passage from Augustine which I gladly ex- tract, if it be only to show that in these remarks upon the reasoning of the early Fathers, I am not stating any thing new or paradoxical. " To say, that the Hebrew prophecies are not fit evi- dences for bringing the heathen to a belief on Christ, is ridiculous folly," says St. Augustine; "seeing that all the heathen nations have been brouorht to the belief of Christ by the Hebrew prophecies." — " Dicere autem, non esse aptam gentibus HebrcBam pro- pJietiam ut credant in Christum, cum videat omnes gentes per Hebrceam prophetiam credere in Christum, lidicula insania estK" The authorities above produced, are suflRcient to justify the assertion here made by Augustine; ' Contra Faust, xiii. c. 2. 92 OPINIONS OF THE FATHERS. [LECT. it would otherwise be an easy task to enlarge them to almost any extent ; not indeed by direct quotations, but by shewing, in every case, what the reasoning was, which they actually employed, when- ever the truth of Christianity was the point at issue. They do not slur over the miracles of Christ as if they did not believe them, or supposed that they would be denied — far from it; but assuming the question to be, not the truth of the facts, but the explanation of them — it is to the Old Testa- ment they uniformly appeal, as shewing that nothing- had been asserted or was believed of Christ, or had been taught by him, without the warranty of long I ^ preceding prophecies. But the question is not, as to the use made by the Fathers, of the Old Testa- ment ; but as to the soundness of the premises, from which they reasoned. To this point, then, our attention must now be directed. The obvious and popular objection to the evidence of prophecy, is the vague and indeterminate lan- guage in which, sometimes the subject-matter of the prediction, and sometimes the prediction itself, is couched. In the case of the heathen oracles, their amphibolical obscurity was a matter of proverbial observation : o\ •^prjerjUoXoyoi ov tr poopitovrai TroTf, was a saying of Aristotle, often quoted. In truth, it is a difficulty not peculiar to false prophecies, but in some degree, inherent in the nature of the evidence. / When the subject of a prophecy is some specific VI.] MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED. 93 event, such as was the destruction of Jerusalem, or the time of the sojourning of the people of Israel in Egypt, there is nothing to hinder the language of it from being plain and unambiguous. But unless the intent and meaning of the prediction be a matter of fact, or something equally determinate, a certain degree of verbal obscurity can hardly be avoided. How was the person of an individual to be distinguished, so that his character, as a messenger from God, might immediately be known, without the possibility of imposition ? And still more, how were tmths and propositions hereafter to be revealed, so to be foretold, as that when revealed, no doubt should exist as to their divine authority ? Accordingly I do not mean to say that the prophecies of the Old Testament, if separately weighed and examined, are all of them so clearly expressed, as not to admit of any diversity of con- struction. On the contrary, I believe that if the book were placed in the hands of a person for the first time, and his opinion asked as to the purport of all the oracles, real or pretended, with which it abounds, he would be very much at a loss what explanation to give ; certainly he would be unable to render an exact and detailed account of their mean- ing. But this will only render the fact the more remarkable — especially if we consider the subject of those prophecies — if it should appear, that an exact and detailed tradition has existed among the Jews, apparently from time immemorial, both as to the 94 MEANING OF THE I'ROPHECIES FIXED [lECT. general signification of their prophetical books, and as to the particular meaning of detached passages ; and tliat point by point, and almost word for word, this traditional interpretation was actually realized. It is common to hear objections raised against the manner in which passages from the Old Testa- ment have been applied, by the writers of the New. Sometimes their interpretations are said to be forced ; sometimes they are accused of having mistaken the sense ; and in a great number of in- stances, of having considered expressions and allu- sions as prophetic, which are stamped with no such character. Much valuable learning has been shewn in vindicating the Apostles from these charges ; but the proper answer is to be found, not in the critical exposition of the i)assages, but in that which is an historical statement : namely, that, with the exception of certain passages, which I shall hereafter state, and which are all of one particular kind, in no instance that I am aware of, (though I have ex- amined the question with some attention) do the Apostles ever apply any passages from the Old Testament to Jesus Christ, except those which were regarded as prophetical by the Jews of that day, and had been so regarded long before ; and which, moreover, had by them been always interpreted of the Messiah. Whatever difference of opinion may now exist on this point, between the Jews and Christians, has arisen since the introduction of Christianity. At the time when it appeared, there VI.] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 95 was no controversy as to the meaning of the passages which the Apostles adduced ; but only as to the reasons they assigned for applying that mean- ins: to Jesus of Nazareth. This, I think, is evident, upon the very face of the narrative parts of the New Testament, no less than in almost every one of the Epistles. There is not so much as a hint, in the former, of any contradic- tion being given, either to our Saviour himself, or afterwards to the Apostles, as misapplying the Scrip- tures ; and with respect to the Epistles, it will be seen, upon examination, that except we sup- pose an agreement of opinion, up to a certain point, between the writers of them, and the Jews, in re- spect of the general sense of the quotations al- leged by the former, their arguments will often not have common sense. While, on the other hand, the absence of any discussion, in proof of the pro- phetical character of the passages they allege, and their total silence as to any doubt or contrariety of interpretation, would seem to furnish as strong a proof, as any negative inference can do, that in the premises from which both parties reasoned, no doubt or contrariety of sentiments at- that time pre- vailed. But we are not left to inference, or to merely negative proofs of this important fact ; nor to the evidence of writings which have been composed by Christians. There are Jewish documents remaining, about whose authenticity, no question has ever been % 96 MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED [lECT. raised on any side, wliich leave us in no uncertainty as to the belief of the Jews, at the time when Christi- anity first appeared, on all the points then at issue between them. The Jewish writers may be divided into two classes : — those who lived before, and those who have lived since, the compilation of the Talmud. The latter, though often valuable, as authorities for explaining the text of the Bible, and the manners and customs to which it refers, do not possess any sort of authority, in the determination of points of controversy relating to the sense of the prophe- cies. The question is not, what is the interpreta- tion of Maimonides, or Joseph Albo, or Kimchi, or writers of a comparatively recent date, whose opinions have been in a great measure guided by a desire to o])pose the Christian interpretation ; but what, in each instance, was the interpre- tation which was affixed by the' Jewish Church, in the age of the Apostles. Nothing can be moire plainly marked, than the change which has been effected in the opinions of the Jews, by the estab- lishment of the Gospel : so much so, that whenever we find two senses of any passage, one of which is more, and the other less favourable to the Christian scheme, it may be concluded almost with certainty, that the former is the ancient, and the latter, the modern interpretation. Omitting then all notice of modern authorities, and attending only to the ancient, I think that it VI,] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 97 may be laid down, as a proposition to which there are not more than one or two exceptions, (and those exceptions admitting of an explanation which will be found to strengthen the rule,) that the sense which was put upon the several prophecies adduced by the Apostles, as we find them stated in the New Testament, was the same as had been put upon them by the Jewish nation in general, and as was then taught in their synagogues. Except the Targums, or Chaldee Paraphrases of Onkelos on the Pentateuch, and Jonathan on the Prophets, there are no Jewish writings extant, the composition of which is supposed to have been so early as the Christian epoch. Though the tradi- tions, which have been put together in the Mischna, belong to a much earlier date, yet the book itself was composed in the second century. The com- mentary on the Mischna, or, as it is called, the Gemara, was compiled considerably later; and the contents of it are of various ages : some before Christ, and some as late as the fifth and sixth centuries. Next to the Targums, the work most mportant to our present purpose, is the Sohar of R. Simeon Ben Jochai, who flourished early in the second century. This book is held in the highest venera- tion by the Jews, and is the foundation of their Cabbala. The subject of it is, the coming of the Messiah, and the things which will happen upon the earth in those days, as deducible from H ^ 98 MEANING OF THE PROrilECIES FIXED [lECT. the prophecies ; and so nearly do the deductions approach to the construction, put upon the Okl Testament by the writers of the New, that Schoett- genius came to the conclusion, that the author, though a Jew by birth and by profession, must in his secret mind have been a Christian. In addition to the above-mentioned sources of in- formation, concerning the traditional opinions of the ancient synagogue, are the Rabbinical commentaries on the several books of the Old Testament, called Libri Midraschici. The authors of these books are supposed to have lived, some of them before Christ, and others, successively in the second, and third, and fourth centuries. Whatever question might be raised, as to the reliance to be placed upon the authority of these several books, on the part of Christians, in in- stances where it pressed against them ; yet the most scrupulous weigher of evidence may dismiss all jealousy and suspicion from his mind, whenever the bearing of it is in their favour. Although the Jews have, in a great many cases, ojienly thrown aside the testimony of their early teachers ; no instance has ever been produced where they have done so, except for the purpose of shutting out the arguments adduced by Christians. To suppose that they would, under any circumstances, depart from tradition in a case where it would ojien a door to those arguments, is as contrary to probability as any suj)position that could be proposed. " Who- VI.] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 99 ever," says the author of the Sohar (quoted by Schoettgenius) " shall propose any interpretations of the word, except such as he has heard from the mouth of the Rabbins, him, shall the holy, blessed God punish in the world to come: and when his soul shall seek to enter into its habitation, they shall cause him to be cast forth from among the number of the living." Certainly in many instances, the spirit of this ad- monition has been transgressed by the Jews, in silently dropping many doctrines and traditions of their church, which afforded a handle to their adver- saries; but I am persuaded we might safely say, that not so much as one opinion, from the days of Christ till the present, has knowingly been engrafted upon their ancient traditions, the tendency of which was to confirm the Christian scheme. Having offered these few brief remarks in ex- planation of the testimony by which I mean to shew, that the prophecies of the Old Testament, if fulfilled at all, have been fulfilled, — not in a sense which was discovered after the event, or was re- ceived only by the disciples of Jesus Christ, and which was not known before, or, if known, was re- jected by their adversaries : but have been fulfilled in a sense, which, whether agreeable to the prin- ciples of criticism or not, was agreeable to the mean- ing and import of the several prophecies, in the opinion of the Jews of that time : — having, I say, given some account of the data upon which I hope h2 loo MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED [lECT. to establish the truth of this proposition, I shall now proceed to the proofs on which it depends. The authority on which these proofs will rest, are — first, the Tar^ms, or Jewish Paraphrases ; and secondly, two books which throw a light, as curious as important, upon the ancient doctrines of the Jewish Church. These books are the Pugio Fidei Ad versus Mauros et Judaios, written by a Spanish monk before the invention of printing, of the name of Raymundus Martini, and edited by J. B. Carpzof, with the notes of De Voisin, 1687 ; and the Horse Hebraicse et Talmudicae of Schoettgenius, printed at Dresden, 1733: a work not sufficiently known, but which never ought to be off the table of the theological student. Every statement made in each of these works, is supported by references, in the words of the several authorities adduced ; and I have found very few instances where the quotations do not bear out the conclusions. To the fidelity of the quotations I am unable to speak ; tliough many of them would have tempted me to take that trouble, as being beyond measure surprising from the pen of a Jew ; but Augustinus Justi- nianus, in the preface to his edition of the Victoria contra Judajos, by Porchetus, Paris, 1 520, tells us that he has verified every one of the quotations of Ray- mundus Martini, and can bear a full testimony to their fidelity. He tells us that Martini was a monk of the order to which he himself belonged ; and originally, as he believes, a Jew. Indeed no one, VI. j BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 101 as he says, who was not of their nation, or who had not the assistance of a Rabbin, could have obtained such access to the secret treasures of the Jews, as the Pugio Fidei indicates. He spoke from his own knowledge, having, as he tells us, experienced the difficulty : " Ewpertus sum quantis sit opus labcytibus, vigiliis, sumptibus, aud'iliis denique vokntibus, Hebrcs- onim penetrare secreta. His tamen oimiibus ipse ut- cunque instructus, legi in HebrcBorum monumentis bonam partem eontm qucB citantur a Raymundo, ut mdlus reliqims sit dubitationis locus de allegationum fide; possumus rei hujus locupletissimum apud unum- quemqiie fidem facere : atque testitnonio libroi'um wide desumpta Jkec pretiosa supellex ; quos fere omnes miJii comparavi : observoque apud me perinde ac regis mar- garitas ac gemmas^ In order to keep the proofs which I shall bring forward, within a reasonable compass, I shall confine them to a fixed part of the Old Testament. By far the largest number of the passages alleged by the 'i writers of the New Testament, are found in two^^ books, viz. Isaiah and the Psalms. Let us then ) take these and examine, one by one, every passage quoted from them by the Apostles, as applicable to Christ. Next let us turn to the two works just mentioned, to see whether the same passages were referred by the ancient synagogue to the Messiah. Whenever this shall appear to have been the case, it will be evident that the sense put upon them by the Apostles, was not of their own " private interpreta- 102 MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED [lECT. tion," but was that which the nation at large had been instructed to receive. Ps. ii. 1, 2. 6. 8, quoted Acts iv. 25. 28 ; xiii. 33. Referred to the Messiah in Melchita, fol. 3, 3. Sohar. Gen. Midrash. Tehillim. Ps. viii. 4. 6, quoted Heb. ii. 6. 9. Referred to the Messiah in Tikkune Sohar. c. 70. Ps. xvi. 8. 11, quoted Acts ii. 25. 32. Referred to the Messiah in Bereschith rabba, sect. 88. Ps. xxii. 1. 8. 16. 18, quoted Matthew xxvii. 46. Referred to the Messiah in IMidrash. Tehillim. Pe- sikta Rabbathi in Talkut Simeoni. fol. 56. 4. Soliar. Numer. fol. 100. Ps. xl. 6. 8, quoted Heb. x. 5. 10. Referred to the Messiah in Midrash. Ruth, fol. 43. 3, 4. Ps. xlv. 1. 7, quoted Hebrews i. 8, 9. Rom. ix. 5. Referred to the Messiah in Targum. Sohar ; and also by the modern Jewish commentators. Ps. Ixviii. 18, 19, quoted Ephes. iv. 8. Referred to the Messiah by R. Obadja Haggaon, cited by Cartwright. Schemoth rabba, sect. 35. Ps. Ixix. 21, quoted Matt, xxvii. 34. 48 —Gall and vinegar given to Christ to drink. I have found no Jewish authority for the application of this par- ticular fact to the Messiah, either in Schoettgenius or the Pugio Fidei ; but the Psalm itself is applied to him generally by several writers quoted by Martini. Ps. ex. 1. 4, quoted Heb. v. 5, 6; vi. 19, 20. Compare Sohar. Gen. fol. 35. Sohar. Num. fol. 99. VI.] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 103 Midrash. Tehillini ad loc. Targum. Sohar. chadasli, fol 42. Gen. fol. 42. 29. Ps. cxviii. 22, 23. Compare Sohar. Gen. fol. 118. Idem Numer. fol. 86, et passim. The above are the only psalms to which I can find any plain allusion in the New Testament ; and if we may trust to the references given by Schoettgen and Raymundus Martini, they are all of them, either generally or particularly, applied to the times of the Messiah by the old Rabbinical writers. We are n not, however, to suppose, that those here quoted, / are the only psalms which tlie ancient Jewish church ) so explained; on the contrary, many, not adduced I in the New Testament, might be added. The prin-5^ ciple of interpretation adopted by the Jews would appear to have been very simple : — it was, that, whenever any expressions were found in the pro- phetical writings, conveying a meaning, too high and comprehensive to admit of an historical ap- \ plication to known jjersons or events, such expres- / sions should be referred, either to the Messiah him- self, or to his promised kingdom. As to double senses of the prophecies, of which Grotius and Warburton talk, and other writers after them, it N may be doubted whether such a notion ever en- \ tered into the minds of the ancient Jews. Their i rule seems to have been founded on the oppo- / site supposition : that no prophecy could have two senses ; and, therefore, that when the literal sense of the inspired writer afforded no intelligible meaning, 5 1 '^^ ^ 104 MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED [LECT. the words were to be understood prophetically. In fact, if it be once allowed, that a prophecy is capable / of more than one true interpretation, where are we to fix the limit ? The danger of such a principle needs not to be pointed out ; and except it be founded on stronger reasons than are given by Grotius, in his ^ commentary on St. Matt. ch. i. it is as unfounded as it is dangerous. — But to return to our subject. Of the sixty-six chapters which compose the Book ; of Isaiah, all, except fifteen, are referred by one Jewish writer or another to the times of the Mes- siah ; but in the New Testament, I think that , there are not quotations from more than sixteen or seventeen. Is. ii. 1. 5. Conversion of the Gentiles. John x. 16. Acts xxviii. 28. These passages are applied to the Messiah in the Targum, and generally by Jewish commentators, both ancient and recent. Is. vii. 14. The miraculous birth of Christ, "/^oc ^ ^ ^ '"'^ ; caput^' says Schoettgen, ^''JudcBi antiquioi'eSi ex iiiscitid, juniores vero, ex malitid neglexerunV I shall take occasion, in my next Lecture, to offer some re- marks upon this important prophecy, which will, I hope, both explain the ignorance of the ancient Jews, and vindicate the present, from the charge here preferred by Schoettgen ; but in the mean time, it is suflUcient to say, that this jn-ophecy stands out almost singly, as one which the Apostles have ai)plied to Christ on their own authority. Is. viii. 13, 14. Christ, a stone of stumbling. Rom. VI.] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRI ix. 33. 1 Peter ii. 7, 8. Applied to the Messiah in Sanhedrim, fol. 38. Breschith rabba, sect. 42. fol. 40. Is. ix. " Unto us a child is born." This very im- portant pro])hecy is referred to the Messiah in the Targum ; and it is generally so understood by Chris- tians. Nevertheless, I cannot satisfy myself that any allusion to it is to be found in the New Testament. -K^ Is. xviii. 16. Christ, the chief corner-stone. 1 Pet. ii. 3. 6. Applied to the Messiah in Sanhedrim, fol. 98. 1. Talkut Simeoni, i. fol. 49. 3. Breschith Kezara citante Raymundo Martini in Pug. Fid. ii. 4. p. 313. Is. XXX. 3, 4. 15. Miracles of the Gospel and effusion of the Spirit. Acts ii. 4. Rom. xi. 18. Compare Janchuma, fol. 1. 2. Debarim rabba, sect. 6. fol. 258. 2. Sohar, chadash, fol. 89. 3. Is. xxxi. Times of the Messiah. New Testament passim. See Pesikta rabbathi, fol. 29. 3. Tan- chuma. Talkut Simeoni, i. fol. 157. 1. Sohar. Exod. fol. 34. col. 134. Is. xl. John the forerunner of Christ. This chapter is referred to the Messiah by the present Jews, as well as by the ancient. See Kimchi. A ben Esra. Pesikta in Talkut Simeoni, ii. fol. 49. 1. as quoted by Schoettgenius in loco. Is. xlii. 1. 7. 16. New Testament /?am7w. Applied to Christ in the Targum, and by all the present Jews. Is. liii. The whole chapter is referred to the Mes- 106 MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES FIXED [lECT. siali in the New Testament, as it also is in the Tar- gum ; and in the Sohar passim. Is. Iv. 1. 5. Christ, the living water. John iv. 10. 14. Schoettgen quotes from Galatinus, Breschith rabba ad Genes, xlix. 14 ; but the passage is not found, he tells us, in the editions which he has consulted. Is. Ix. Glory of Christ's kingdom. New Testament passim. So applied in the Targum, and by the ancient Jewish Church passim. Is. Ixi. Christ, anointed by the Spirit. Luke iv. 16. Matthew, iii. 16, 17. This chapter is referred to the Messiah by the modern Jewish commentators, as well as the ancient. If it would not be tedious, it would be a task of no difficulty, to go through the remaining passages quoted from the Old Testament by the Apostles, in confirmation of Christ's divine commission. They are, I believe, not more than between twenty and thirty ; and with the single exception of Job xix. 25, (about which the Jews, both of the present and of former times are silent,) in every instance, the authority of the ancient Synagogue may be produced, in con- firmation of the interpretation the Apostles affixed. With respect to the more important of the pro- phecies which they allege : — all those, that is to say, which the Jews considered, as the " terms " by which the person of the Messiah would be known, and, from which, the time, beyond which he was not to be looked for, was to be determined : — we can j)ro- duce the authority of the Targums in favour of the VI.] BEFORE THE COMING OF CHRIST. 107 Christian interpretation. And in the present question this is the highest of all authorities ; because these books were known to the people at large, and in fact were the channels, through which all their knowledge of the original Scriptures was derived. Daniel, in his prophecy of the seventy weeks refers by name to the Messiahj and Gen. iii. 15, Numbers xxiv. 17, Haggai ii. ^7. .9. Mai. iii. 1. Micah v. 2, Zech. ix. 9, are like wise referred to him in the same manner, by all authorities, ancient and modern. It is not necessary to enter into any contro- ~ versy in this part of the argument. I am not / saying that the ancient Jews were right or wrong, or that the Apostles were right or wrong. I am simply stating a matter of fact : — that whether right or wrong, the construction put upon the prophecies by both parties was the same : the difference be- tween them, not regarding the reality or general meaning of the prophecies, adduced by the latter, but only the proof of their having been fulfilled. The preceding remarks have been built upon the \ general rule ; but it must not be dissembled that many ( and important excej^tions to it may be produced. The Apostles quote passages from the Old Testament to show, — that Christ was to be born of a virgin ; that he N was to rise from the dead : that he was to drink srall and vinegar ; that his garments were to be parted ; that he was to be betrayed for thirty pieces of silver. These and some other facts are adduced by the Apostles, as fulfilments of i)roi)hecies ; and some of ri. 108 MEANING OF THE PROPHECIES, ETC. [lECT. VI. [ them, doubtless, are of much importance. But I^ have been able to find no proof that those passages were referred to the Messiah by the ancient Jewish Church ; and yet, if unexplained, they would seem to be sufficient in number, to overturn the general pro- position which I have laid down. But exceptions, which are founded upon specific reasons, instead of overturning, will sometimes confirm a rule. We have now to inquire, whether in the instance of the prophecies here adverted to, any such reasons can be shown, for their having been withdrawn from the general rule which I have just now asserted. The consideration of this point will furnish the subject of my next Lecture. LECTURE Vir. ON PROPHECIES, THE MEANING OF WHICH WAS KEPT BACK UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. As every apparent deviation from the course of na- ture is not necessarily a miracle, so neither is every prediction to be called a prophecy. Many things may seem in our eyes to be deviations from the course / of nature, which are nevertheless in strict accordance \ with its laws. So likewise many things spoken at / random may come true by chance ; many things may come true, which human foresight was able to divine ; and some predictions have a tendency to fulfil them- / selves. Of such prophecies as these, many, no doubt, in all ages, may have been fulfilled. But there is no instance recorded in profane history, of any prophecy having come to pass, from which all and each of these suppositions can be excluded. History indeed is full of fabulous miracles ; but if we except the Old 1 1 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. Testament, there is not any case, eitlier in ancient or modern times, in wliich the fulfilment of a prophecy has been so much as pretended ; meaning by this word, not a mere blind coincidence, but a case in which an event, which no human sagacity could have anticipated, nor any combination of human means have brought to pass, came true in accord- ance with a previous expectation. It is the previous expectation which shuts out all dispute, and constitutes what would seem to be the case of a perfect prophecy. But it is plain that this case can only happen, when the subject-matter of the prophecy is a contingent event ; by which I mean an event, the causes of which, as was just now said, are placed not only beyond all human calculation, but also beyond all human power and control. For otherwise the previous expectation becomes an occa- sion of doubt and suspicion, as opening the door to a suo'^estion of fraud or collusion. There are cases, in which even a mere knowledge of the existence of a prophecy, would be liable to this inconvenience ; and when the proof of its fulfilment would be difticult or impossible, except on a supposition that it had previously been either unknown altogether, or mis- imderstood. It is plain then, that if we were examining, not an insulated prediction, but a scheme of pro])hecy, in which, as subordinate to one great and i)rin('ipal event, many others had been predicted, some con- tingent, and some not so, but depending upon known VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. Ill causes, the hypothesis would require, that in tlio latter class of events there should have been no ])re- ceding expectation. In many cases it would be necessary, that even a knowledge of the prophecy itself should have been kept back. For there is a large class of facts which depend upon the voluntary actions of human agents ; and which men may agree together either to bring about or to hinder. There is another class of facts, the truth of which it may be difficult to prove or disprove ; and which men, there- fore, may simulate, though they did not really happen ; or if they did, may deny. In any of these cases, the supposition of a previous expectation, instead of de- monstrating a Divine Providence, would cause the proof of it to be uncertain. It would not, therefore, impeach the pretensions of a scheme of prophecy to be considered as of divine authority, that many of the predictions which it contained had not been under- stood until after the event, provided this had occurred, enly in the instance of such events as I have here been speaking of. If in the case of all other events, that is to say, of all events depending solely upon the ■will and power of God, it should appear that there had been, not only an antecedent knowledge, but, as regards the general subject of the supposed scheme, a full and unequivocal expectation — the absence of such previous knowledge and expectation, if it was confined to events which were not contingent, instead of detracting from the proof of a Divine Providence, would confirm it: by at once excluding tlie supposition ^ 112 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. of chance or blind necessity. It would demonstrate the agency of an intelligent Cause. Such a scheme ( must have been a concerted scheme, as being plan- i ned upon a rule, the observation of which necessarily \ implied forethought and design. Bearing these remarks in mind, let us now proceed to examine the prophecies of the Old Testament, under the two heads here laid down, of perfect and imperfect ; and observe whether, in adjusting the events foretold, the distinction which I have pointed out between contingent and non-contingent facts, has been respectively preserved. We have seen that the prophecies applied to Christ in the New Testa- ment, are, with certain stated exceptions, the same as had been applied to the promised JMessiah, by the Jewish Synagogue ; but there are deviations from this rule, some passages being referred to Christ by the Apostles, which had not been so understood be- fore. Distinguishing these last, as cases of imperfect prophecy, the question is, whether their use was acci- dental only, or whether it was regulated by the nature of the facts, as just now explained. It is on this point that the value of these prophecies, as evidences of revelation, will depend. Assuming, for the sake of argument, the divine authority of the Gospel, it will not, I think, be doubted, after what has been said in a former Lecture, that an exi)ectation of it, on the part of mankind, before it was revealed, would greatly have facilitated its reception. It was therefore perfectly consistent VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 113 with the belief of its having come from God, that prophecies relating to it, should have been designedly spread abroad, and have been generally understood in some sense, not incompatible with its true mean- ing. This remark will include all predictions re- lating to the nation of the promised Messenger, to his lineage, his birth-place, the generation of man- kind in which he was to appear, and so on. These facts are all of them contingent in their nature ; and the general object of such prophecies, would not have been so completely answered, by the knowledge of them having been kept back, as by its having been long before communicated. But if we examine the life of Christ, we shall immediately see, that there is another description of marks and incidents, which if made the subject of prophecy, would be in the opposite case ; and in which the Divine purpose, for the reason just now stated, would seem, as plainly, to require obscurity and concealment. For example : had those prophecies, in which the \ violent death of the Messiah is foreshewn and the exact time when it was to take place, been under- stood literally by the Jews, they would not have put Jesus Christ to death, in disproof of his pretensions, and as a means of undeceiving the people. When pressed by Pilate " to let Jesus go !" they " denied the Holy One and the Just," and " desired a mur- derer to be granted unto them ;" " but," adds St. Peter, " I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." ^^ I'U.^i^ 114 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. In like manner, had they known beforehand, that those passages in the Psahns, wliere it is said " they gave me gall and vinegar to drink," " they pierced my hands and my feet," " they parted my garments among them," were prophecies referring to the man- ner in which the Messiah would be put to death, — it is clear that they would have been careful not to cause their fulfilment in the person of our Lord, at the very moment when they were punishing him as an impostor. The same remark will apply to the thirty pieces of silver, which had been given to Judas Iscariot, as the price of his treachery, and with which, when it was returned to the rulers of the people, they bought the potter's field. Had that passage of Zechariah been understood by them, as a prophecy relating to their Messiah, in which he says, " And the Lord said unto me. Cast it unto the potter : a goodly price that I was prized at by them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the Lord '," — it would have been easy for the Jews, humanly speaking, to have defeated its intention. This is not merely a possible supposition. The place of the Messiah's birth was a contingent fact ; and St. Matthew tells us, that Ilerod attempted to defeat the prophecy from which it w'as known, by putting to death all the children of two years old and uiuler, who had been born in the neighbour- ' Ch. xi. 13. VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 115 hood of Bethlehem. The above propliecies rehite to events of a collateral kind, and not to matters of fundamental proof; but there are others of the very first importance, which come under the same class. The seventh chapter of Isaia^i (v. 14), where the miraculous conception of Christ is believed to have been predicted, may be mentioned as an example, in this also, the supposition of a previous expectation, instead of strengthening the evidence of a divine authority, would have vitiated the proof. There is perhaps no prophecy of the Old Testa- ment, which has attracted so much attention as thi^^-ia**!.^ 7. or has been the subject of as much discussion. Almost every writer upon this part of the evidences, from Justin Martyr down to Bishop Chandler, has placed it in the foremost rank. The latter indeed considers the proof of this passage having been a pro- phecy, and having received its fulfilment in Christ, to be so plain, that he regards the absence of any notice of it in the Jewish writings, as an evidence of the dishonesty of their doctors : " Many things," says the Bishop, " were said in the ancient Targums, that do not appear in the present copies. And the same is true of other Jewish books. These writings were entirely in the Jews' own possession a few centuries ago. And as the Jews became acquainted with the state of their controversy with the Chris- tians, it was a temptation to expunge such glaring i2 1 \C) PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. passages, as would give advantage to the Cliristians and were of no use to themselves, when they were sure not to be found out." s/ w£~ I am not aware of any legitimate reason for be- i lieving, that there is the smallest truth in this ] sweeping charge against the Jewish doctors. But in the present instance, there is positive proof to the contrary ; inasmuch as it appears from Justin, that the V Jews, in his time, interpreted the passage, as they do ( now, not of the Messias, but of Hezekiah. It is true, ( I f nothing can be more tame or less seemingly probable than this sense. Ahaz, it appears, was desired to ask a sign of God ; and upon his refiisal to do so, the ])roj)liet tells him, that the Lord himself will give liim a sign. "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Now Hezekiah was never called Immanuel. And if the sign to be given to Ahaz, was simply, as the Jews say, that a young woman should bear a son, who was to be distinguished from other men, in no way besides, the passage, as Justin tells Trypho, ajipears ' to be devoid of all meaning. It is, however, incon- testably certain that no authority can be found, in any Jewish writing, either ancient or modern, for the interpretation put upon this passage by the Apostles. I do not say that there is no authority for asserting the miraculous generation of the pro- mised Messiah ; but that there is none, as deduciblo from this particular passage : — for it is important to VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 117 observe that the notion itself, which the prophecy conveyed, was certainly not new to the Jews. It is plain, as well from their own writings as \/ \/ from the Gospels, that they did not expect the birth of the Messiah to be in the way of ordinary men. " Who shall declare his generation ?" said Isaiah ; and accordingly we read in St. John vii. " Do the rulers know that this is the very Christ ? Howbeit we know this man whence he is, but when Christ -'4^^'^ Cometh no man knoweth whence he is." iThus we are -^ told by Lightfoot, that it is a question often mooted in the Talmud, " whether he was to come from the livinof or the dead." There seems also to have been a surmise, that the Messiah was to be without a father. Diciit R. Beracliijah quod Deus sanctus, benedidm, dicit Israeli, Vos diicistis coram me, Pupilli facti siimiis, sine J // ^/l' 7 patre. — Redemptor qiioque quern ego stare faciam ex <^*-^^ 'z nobis, sme^patre erit, sicut dictum est \ " iLcce vir, <^:^s^U-*La^ Germen nomen ejus, et de sub se germinahit ;" et sic dicit L^c/^*^*-^ Esaias^, " Et ascendit ut virgidtum coram eo." Super ^ x» 4^ eo David quoque dicit ', " EcV matrice aurorce tibi ros • '• \ ^ juvcntutis tuee." So far the gloss, says Raymundus ^^ a. ^^ Martini : observino: that in these words the Jews '^f*' **^ "^ ' referred to the manner of Christ's generation. /X^/tf Z**^ Now surely, if the Jews speak of the Messiah as !^ /'•►A^ one who was to be born " without a father ;" and — * „ * describe his generation under the similitude of a y /^ branch, or a root that was to spring up of itself out ' Zech. vi. 12. ' Ch. liii. 3. ' Ps. ex. 3. 118 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. of the ground, which is propagated not by seed, but by a process of its own ; in this case, though they may have had no expectation of any such events, as are related in the first chapter of St. Matthew, yet their minds must have been prepared for events of some kind, which were to be out of the ordinary course of nature. And if so, it is plain that when the Aj^ostles applied the passage of Isaiah, now be- fore us, to Jesus Christ, they were not putting any new construction upon the general meaning of the projihecies, but only striking out the sense of a particular passage, the knowledge of which had, till then, been kept back. But why, it may be asked, should the knowledge of this event have been kept back? So far from being a fact which was dependent upon any human agency or control, it was not only a contingent event, but a miracle. This is true ; but it was, as I shall explain, an event which, if it had been pre- ^ ■ ceded by a distinct expectation, never could have yL (been proved. 'The absence of this, is even a part of the evidence on which it stands. The truth of the fact, as a moment's consideration must shew, rests, and must rest, on the testimony of the mother of our Lord. The Apostles do not say, (nor if they had, would an adverse party have received their afiirmation,) that the knowledge of it had been revealed to them by inspiration ; but even if it had been, it would still be certain, that the aj)plication (»f the prophecy to the birth (»f the 6 Jivi VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 119 Messiah, was subsequent to our Lord's nativity ; and ) the belief of his miraculous conception anterior to \ »^*^ *-> tlie knowledge of the prophecy. If we read St. '"^T*^ y Matthew's or St. Luke's account of our Lord's birth, we shall have no difficulty in understanding the origin of this belief. No one who attached credit to the particulars which are there narrated, could be likely to have questioned the application of the prophecy ; and no one who did not believe those particulars, could have been called upon to believe the fact, solely on the evidence which the words of Isaiah furnished. The business of prophecy, as has been explained, is not to prove the truth of facts, but to explain the cause. In the present case, it cannot be questioned, but that the event was of a kind most difficult to prove, even if true ; and almost equally difficult of dis- proof, if untrue ; and, therefore, such, as would not have been entitled to belief, simply on the credit of the Virgin Mary's veracity, unsupported by other evidence. This other evidence consisted of those various miraculous occurrences related by the Evan- gelists : — the salutation of the angels, the manifesta- tion of a meteoric sign in the heavens ; the address of Elizabeth, and all the particulars connected with the birth of John the Baptist. If those transac- , tions were true, they must have been well known 1 to many persons then alive ; and if false, the refuta- tion of them was also easy, inasmuch as at the time 120 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [LECT. of our Saviour's death, the events in question were comparatively recent. This is the ground on which the credibility of Mary's declaration depends. The use made of Isaiah's testimony by the Evangelists, was to iden- tify the child Jesus, with that child of whom the Scriptures had spoken. And if we suppose the ap- plication of the prophecy to the Messiah never to have been thought of before, but to have been first suggested to the Apostles, after their knowledge of the extraordinary facts which attended the birth of Christ, its testimony would become most important, as removing from the minds of those who believed those facts to be true, all doubts about the reality of Mary's evidence. The case hardly admitted of any other proof. It is plain, however, that in the above way of reasoning, every thing depends upon this supposi- tion. If we adopt the hypothesis — which so many writers, in their zeal, endeavour to maintain — that the prophecy of Isaiah was ahvays understood by the Jews in the sense which the Christians have put upon it, and contend that the miraculous conception of the Messiah had, from the beginning, been a i)art of the popular persuasion, the weight of the argument would seem to be thrown into the opposite scale. Had this been the case, a handle would have been given to those, who rejected the pretensions of Christ, for saying that the invention of the story had been VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 121 suggested, by the well-known belief of the vulgar. Under such circumstances, the prophecy would Lave been a hindrance to the evidence of the fact, and not a confirmation of it. Instead of advancing the divine purpose, it would rather have tended to obstruct it. Following up the reasoning, it is plain ^T that the concealment of its meaning from the Jews, who lived before Christ, furnishes no argument against n^^ its authority ; but on the contrary, when considered in connexion with the general scheme of prophecy, it becomes a presumptive argument in its favour. There is another fact in our Saviour's history, of even more importance still, which does not seem to have formed any part of the Jewish expectation concerning the Messiah : and that is, his resurrec- tion from the dead. Although the Jews appear to have been perfectly aware of the predictions re- lating to the sufferings, which the Messiah was in some mysterious way to undergo, yet the thought of his being destined to suffer death at their hands, never seems to have presented itself to their imagina- tion: Of course, therefore, those prophecies which adverted to the manner of his death, or to any facts which pre-supposed this catastrophe, were not understood beforehand. Allusion has already been -'^-^ '*^''*^^ made to some of those jirophecies ; and it now re- mains to inquire, whether the same considerations, which explain the ignorance in which the Jews were kept, relating to the facts then adverted to, will not also account for the obscurity of those prophe- 122 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. cies, in which the resurrection of the Messiah is supposed to have been foreshewn. After the death of Christ, the passage of Psalm xvi. " Thou shalt not leave my soul in hell, neither shalt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption," was applied to this great event. The same applica- tion was made of Hosea vi. 2. " After two days he will revive us ; on the third day he will raise us up, and we shall live in his sight." I do not, at present, remember any passage of the New Testament in which these words of Hosea are referred to; but they have been since, applied to the resurrection of Christ. The words of the Psalmist are directly quoted in the Acts, and alluded to in other places. The Targumists, however, clearly understood the passage of Hosea, to refer to our own resurrection from the grave ; and I am aware of no passage in the later writings of the Jews, from which it can be inferred, without straining the sense of the words, that they understood either it, or any other jilace of Scripture, to intimate the resurrection of the Messiah. Here again, then, it is plain that the belief of Christ's resurrection, whether we suppose it to have been predicted or not, was unconnected with any general expectation of the fact. A rumour had, indeed, transpired: — "The chief })riests and phari- sees came together to Pilate, saying. Sir, we re- member that that deceiver said, while he was yet alive, After three days I will rise again. Command, therefore, that the sej)ulchre be made sure, until VII. J^ ' UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 123 after the third day, lest his disciples come by night and steal him away, and say unto the people, He is risen from the dead." This was the explanation to be guarded against : — the supposition of fraud and collusion. But if so, does it not seem evident, that in the case of a fact open to this interpretation, any antecedent belief would have afforded a prima facie case of suspicion : as furnishing a solution, not only of the motives of those by whom the im- posture was perpetrated, but also of its success ? It is plain, that the allusions to this event in the Old Testament are both few and slight, as well as dark and ambiguous ; so few and slight, as hardly to con- stitute a prophecy. As it is, however, they are more than the case requires. The proof of this part of our Saviour's history would have been damaged by any clear and distinct prediction ; and if the Scrip- tures of the Old Testament had been altosfether silent on the point, no evil consequence would have ensued. The fact, if true, was one which did not stand in need of any extraneous proof. The object of prophecy, as we have seen, is to prove, not the reality of events, but to demonstrate, by means of a miraculous proof, the finger of a Divine Providence. But if we suppose that our Saviour was really put to death by the hand of the public executioner, and that he afterwards rose from the grave, remainino- many days upon earth convei-sing with his former friends and disciples, — it would not seem that any miraculous proof was required, for the i)urpose of /- f y:.r ...:. 124 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. convincing mankind that a fact like this, could only have been performed by God. " It is some conso- • A lation to poor human nature," says the elder Pliny, " that God cannot do all things. He is denied that privilege, — the best he has conferred on men, — of taking refuge in death ; he cannot bestow upon mor- \ tals the gift of immortality, nor recal the dead to life." — " Nee Deum quidem omnia posse. Naniqiw nee sibl potest conscisce7'e mo7ie?n, quod optiimiin dcdit homini in tantis vitce poenis, nee mortales (eternitate donare, nee revocare defunetos." — Nat. Hist. ii. 7. Pliny was a believer in natural magic, and has a chai)ter upon the science, as he deemed it to be ; but it appears, (if we are willing to take his testi- mony as an exponent of the popular opinion,) that in the estimation of those days, to raise a person from the dead, was a miracle, which even the power of God himself could not accomplish. p The Jewish doctors tell us, " that all the pro- phets, none excepted, prophesied only of the years ^f of the redemption, and the days of the Messiah." " All from Moses our master," says Maimonides, / " to Malachi of blessed memory." " They all," says Abarbanel, " moved by the Holy Ghost, testify and I foretel the coming of the Messiah." It is expressly for the purpose of adding to their knowledge of such prophecies, that the more learned of their nation i)rofess to study the Scriptures. Of course, therefore, it would have been no ground of objec- tion to the Apostles, in their own day, nor would VIT.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 125 it necessarily be so in ours, if they had sometimes quoted passages from the Old Testament, and applied them to Christ, which had not been so quoted and applied before. Nevertheless, though they might have been justified in such a line of argument, yet it may, I believe, be broadly asserted, that with the single exception of Zechar. ix. 9. there is no such case to be found in the New Testament, unless it be in the class of prophecies which we have been examining ; the sense of which could not have been opened, until after the event, without interfering, in the way just now explained, with the proof of their llilfilment. The passage of Zechariah, " Behold, thy \ king Cometh unto thee; he is just, and having sal- . vation ; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon / -^^ a colt, the foal of an ass," was known to the Jews, / and always applied to the Messiah. So far, there- / fore, it belongs to the class of perfect prophecies. \ But upon the principles I have been laying down, its evidence would have been of more value, had it been imperfect : that is, not known and understood, until after its fulfilment. It was a mark easy to be as- sumed ; and for that reason, can be adduced only as an evidence to signify the humility of him, who was to be the Messiah. So far its testimony is appli- cable to Jesus Christ, in a sense which was not apprehended by the Jews ; but beyond this, its value as a prophecy has been reduced almost to nothing, by the very circumstance, which would have im- 126 PROPHECIES NOT UNDERSTOOD [lECT. parted to a fact that was contingent, its chief importance. / The object of the preceding remarks has been, to ( explain certain theoretical rules, connected with the I interpretation of prophecy; and to shew, that the \ prophecies of the Old Testament have been con- J structed in strict accordance with those rules : — the next step is to shew their exact accordance with the event. The tests of prophecy, it has been said, are, time and place, and person ; nothing being more easy than to construct prophecies, which shall seem to be fulfilled, if no restriction of circumstances is required. — " Hoc si est in libris, in quern hominem et i?i quod tempus est f collide enim, qui ilia composuit, pe^fecit^ id quodcunque accidisset, j)Tcedictum videretur, Jiominum ct tempm'um dejinitione sublatd. Adhibidt etiam latebram obsciiritafis, ut iidem versus alias in aliam rem posse accommodari viderenturV — {De Div. ii. 54.) AV hat- ever justice there may be in this remark, as referred to the framers of the Sibylline oracles, it cannot, with any fairness, be applied to the authors of the Jewish. Whether their predictions were fulfilled or not, is a question hereafter to be examined ; but it will be allowed, that in the Old Testament, mankind were boldly put in possession of the tests, by which the truth or fiilsehood of its pre- tensions to divine inspiration might, at the proper season, be determined. No necessary definition, whether of time or place, or person, or things, was VII.] UNTIL AFTER THE EVENT. 127 withheld. We find there, no cunning reservations ; ^ no dark hiding-places ; no artful accommodation of v the language to whatever sense might prove conve- nient. It is not necessary to shew this in detail, by a separate examination of particular projjhecies. The proof of the divine inspiration of the Jewish ^ / Scriptures, does not rest upon the fulfilment of this or that j^rediction ; but on the accomplish- ment of the end to which they were all, in their several places and degrees, subordinate ; and the ( final establishment of which, was the object of that / vast and long protracted scheme of Providence, ) I whereof the whole of the Old Testament is but one ) continued record. In this view of the argument, we \ may pass over all minor points, and taking the inter- ' pretation put upon their prophecies by the ancient Jewish church, as the datum of the argument, com- pare what it was which the Jews expected con- cerning the Messiah, and the revelation of which he ) was to be the Messenger, with the facts which are now believed of Jesus Christ, and the Gospel. It is upon the result of this comparison that the question hangs, and not upon insulated facts. LECTURE VIII. THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. I HAVE licfore had occasion to remark, that at the time when the Apostles lived, nothing, humanly speaking, could be more improbable, than that the event which they proclaimed to be at hand, should have come to pass. The Gospel was then as a mere speck in the horizon. That in the lai)se of a single generation, it should have spread itself over the whole firmament, and the name of its Founder have become familiar to every people, and in every lan- guage of the known world, — though an historical fact not to be disputed, — presents a problem, which neither the miracles of the New Testament, nor the i)ro- phecies recorded in the Old, would be sufficient to explain, without the supposition of God's contiimed co-operation. VIII.] THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY, &C. 129 Abstracted from the opinion of a Divine Provi- dence, there was not, when Christianity appeared, a single point on which the hope of its success could have been built. All anticipations from reason and experience, all calculations of policy, were opposed to such an expectation. The passions of mankind, their prejudices, their interests, were all adverse to its reception. Every constituted authority, as well as every conventional influence, whether of power, or / learning, or rank, or wealth, were arrayed on the side of its adversaries : — and yet it spread with a rapidity and uninterrupted uniformity of progress, which is not only surprising in our eyes, who look back upon the event, but was the subject of wonder and amaze- ment to those, who were witnesses of the phenomenon. It is adverted to by Justin Martyr, as if he were describing a stream whose course flowed upwards, or a vessel which sailed on the waters, with outspread canvass, against wind and tide, and every counter- vailing force. Mysterious in itself, a miraculous character was given to it from the declarations of the Old Testament : " Quidqidd agitur,''' says Tertullian, speaking of these prophecies to the heathens, and pointing their attention to the signs of their fulfilment, then passing before their eyes, " cfddcjidd agitur, prce^ nuntiaJmtur ; qiddquid videtur, midiebntur : dum patimur legmitur, dum recognoscimus probantur :" and this, he proceeds to say, is a pledge that all opposition to the Gospel will be in vain : its ultimate triumph is de- creed : " hinc igitur apiid nos futurmum quoque tula K 130 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [lECTA fides est jam scilicet probatoimm ; quia cum iUis quce ) quotidie probantur, proidicebantur. Ecedem voces sn- ■\ nant : eadem litera notant : idem spiritiis pulsate — ' Adv. Gent. c. xx. Tertullian was writing at the time when mankind were in the transitive state between idolatry and the Gospel; and when the success of this last in the world, was already so assured, as to justify him in adducing its triumphs, as an argument to show that the promises of the Old Testament were actually fulfilling. And he appeals to this argument in preference to every other. Passing over all the proofs, on which we now rest the argument — passing over, moreover, the proofs on which the Apostles rested the argument, — he bids his Gentile countrymen mark the rapidity, with which Christianity was sjiread- ing itself on all sides ; and then compare that which they themselves witnessed, vrith what they read in the prophets of the Old Testament, concerning the future triumph of Christ's kingdom. This great fact, which in the days of the Apostles, was a truth which -re- mained for time to prove, had already become a substantive part of the evidences of the Gospel. Tertullian does not argue, as they did, that God was about to establish the religion of Christ, because he was the Messiah whom the Prophets had foretold ; but he shows that our Saviour was the Messiah, be- cause his religion had been established, or, at least, was visibly in the way to be so. I need hardly observe, that if such a line of argii- VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 131 ment was legitimate, at the time when the contro- versy between Christianity and idolatry was yet pending, and before the success of the former was declared — it should be quite conclusive in the pre- sent day, when the controversy is at an end and the victory completed. If the probable triumph of the Gospel in the world, was a sufficient reason for assort- ing its divine authority, independently of all other proof, except that which was furnished by the Old Testament — this presumption should become a cer- tainty, now that the triumph of the Gospel is no longer a matter of conjecture, but an undisputed fact. This reasoning may, perhaps, appear to prove too much ; but I believe that a fuller consideration of the question will rather confirm than weaken its truth. I formerly observed, that all writers upon the Evi- dences, in the present day, treat the subject, as if they considered the proof to be complete from the miracles alone, without the aid of prophecy/^ I then remarked, that it is on the success of Christianity in the world, that their reasoning ultimately rests, and not, as is commonly believed, on the mere wonder- fulness of the facts. Now the same proposition is true, mutatis mutandis, of the argument from pro- phecy. This evidence is also complete in itself,"! without the aid of miracles. I do not mean that Christianity could have been originally established 132 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [lECT. r by the help of prophecy alone ; any more than it \ could have stood originally, on the strength of mi- racles alone ; — but only that it can now stand singly on either proof. In short, I am prepared to shew, that if Paley and other writers have been able to demonstrate the divine authority of revelation, from the New Testament alone, quite independently of the Old — it is even still more certain, that the same may be demonstrated from the Old Testa- ment alone, independently of the New. And first, let us examine the question, on general principles of reasoning. *y. Upon a review of the uncertainty of all human speculations concerning the unseen world, and the manner in which God ought to be worshipped, Socra- tes, as has been mentioned, was led to conjecture, that a divine revelation would, at some period, be made to mankind. But he did not venture to guess at the truths, which would be made known — nor pretend to foretel the age, in which this disclosure would be made — nor to mention the nation to which it would be communicated — nor to describe the person who would be employed to reveal God's will to mankind. If he had done this, and if all the particulars had come to pass, agreeably to his prediction, such pre- science would have been regarded by mankind, as the effect of divine inspiration. But to take another case: ^, It is well known that neitlior Mahomet himself VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 133 nor his followers have alleged any miraculous proofs of his pretended divine mission. If that pretension rests on any argument at all, it is simply on the pre- sumption to be drawn from the success of the Koran. (. Although this argument, taken by itself, is not ^Vi-'^^^^^^-Tu titled to consideration,, yet it has been brouo-ht -ff ^^ forward, as a set-ofF against the weight attached t/Luz \4 to the same fact, among the evidences of Christi-/''*^' anity. Instead of examining the difference of the two cases, let us assume a perfect similarity. Ac- cordingly we will suppose that there existed among the Arabians a series of documents, of the same character as those, which were in possession of the Jews. Let all the other circumstances be also similar : Let there be the san^.e pixiofs of an antiquity reaching to an age long anterior to the times of the rise of Mahommedism in the Avorld ; and likewise evidence to show, that the belief in their prophetical character, had not been an opinion suggested by after events, but an article of the national creed, as old as the documents themselves. We may further imagine these venerable documents to have been concealed from our knowledge until the present age, and to have been very recently brought to light. Suppose, now, that on examining this volume we found a distinct prediction of the rise of a new reli- gion in the world, in which all the leading doctrines at present held by the followers of Mahomet w^ere plainly set forth. Moreover, that the coming of a 134 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [LECT. future messenger was announced, by whom other stated particulars were to be fully revealed ; that the exact time of his appearing — the place of his birth — the rise and progress of his religion — the dominion exercised by his successors, and other particulars, were stated, such as no human sagacity could have foretold. If now all this should be un- deniably in perfect conformity with the subsequent history of Mahommedism, and agreeable to the pre- sent belief of its followers : — would any one in such a case, deny the divine mission of its founder ? It seems to me that, in the case here supposed, the most sceptical reasoner that ever lived would be under a necessity of ascribing the conquests of Moslemism, and the diffusion of its doctrines, to the express interposition of Divine Providence. A pious mind, indeed, may believe all events to happen by the indirect permission of God; but, in this case, the establishment of the Mahommedan religion would be considered, as the very act of God ; and no one, if we assume the above premises to be true, and suppose them to be admitted, could come to any other con- clusion without denying the existence of a God. And even that alternative, if followed out, would, I think, only add to our perplexity. Let us then apply this same reasoning to the proof of Christianity, as that proof now stands in the Old Testament. That wliich has just been stated hyi)otlietically, as what would be true of VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 135 the reliffioii of Mahomet under the conditions as- signed, will be equally true, under the same sup- posed conditions, of the religion of Christ. Without entering into the question whether the facts asserted by our Saviour's followers really hap- pened or not, there can be no doubt as to the belief of mankind, on that point, in the present day. So, likewise, with respect to the articles of the Christian creed : — The original belief of mankind in these articles may be as unreasonable, if any one pleases so to think, as we will assume the facts themselves, on which they are built, to have been improbable. Both these points shall be left out of our considera- tion. That which I am now concerned to examine, refers to another question : Was the belief of man- ^j^f^ kind, in the truth of those facts and doctrines, which ^ constitute the substance of the Christian creed, pre- / dieted before the time when this religion was esta- ) blished ? That those things are now believed, no one S^ will doubt. But unless the question which I have / just asked, can be answered in the negative, the ) divine origin of Christianity will be as clear a truth, according to the best judgment I am able to form of the subject, as any moral demonstration can be. I see not any door through which it will be possible to escape from the conclusion. I am quite aware that this will seem to be a strong declaration, even though it is made hypothetically. But whether it is stronger than the supposition on 136 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [LECT. which it is made would warrant, if the case were true, is the question wliich we have to determine; and this we shall better be able to do, when we shall have been put in possession of the facts on which its truth depends. Let us then imagine the case with which I set out : — that we knew none of the particulars connected 1 with the rise of Christianity in the world — that the ( writings of the Apostles were lost, as well as the history of their doings — in short, that neither the . / New Testament, nor any knowledge of the parti- l cular: which it relates, now existed. I Of course we should be ignorant on this supposi- / tion of the sayings of Christ — of the places where \ his miracles were performed — of the circumstances accompanying them — and of all particular facts con- nected with his ministry. But we might still know a good deal, in a general way, on these points, from other contemporary sources. Let us, however, sup- pose that no authentic account of any kind existed, either sacred or profane, of the events out of which Christianity arose ; that there was an hiatus in this part of history — a page torn out, rendering the 1 knowledge we possess of the facts we are speaking of, an entire blank. It is not necessary to say that this, if true, would be a grievous disadvantage to the interests of Chris- tianity. It wouhl set aside all the help men derive from their imaginations, and reduce our faith, to little VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 137 more than a dry belief, in a number of general propo- sitions. But it is not to be concluded, that we should therefore be without the means of forming an opinion of its divine authority. Omitting all question about the historical truth of the facts which are asserted by Christians, there is no doubt that, truly or falsely, they believe the Founder of their religion to have been born in Juda3a, — at Bethlehem, — of the seed of Abraham and tribe of Judah, — of the lineage of Jesse, — and family of David ; — that he was the son of a reputed virgin ; — that he was preceded by another prophet, who was his forerunner; — that he lived a life of poverty; — that he worked various miracles; — that he was put to an ignominious death ; — that he rose again from the grave, and ascended into heaven; — that his death was a propitiation for the sins of mankind ; — that he is now seated at the right hand of God, all power and dominion over his Church being committed to his hands. Moreover, it is the belief of all the Christian world, that these events took place, during the standing of the second Temple, a short time before the final destruction of Jerusalem, and about 500 years from the period of the termina- tion of their captivity in Babylon. — These things may not be true, but the belief of their truth is certain. How did this belief arise, and when ? For an answer to these questions, turn back to history. As we are supposing no documents to exist belonging to the age when the transactions ) 138 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [LECT. are believed to have occurred, — let us begin with the writings of Justin JNIartyr, which were com- posed probably about fifty years after the taking of Jerusalem. From his testimony we learn, that an immense multitude of persons, in almost every })art of the Roman empire, and even beyond its limits, had professed, at the time when he wrote, the identical belief, as to every one of the i)articulars just now stated, which mankind entertain in the present day. We go back seventy or eighty years before the time of Justin Martyr; and we observe, that the whole earth was then either Heathen or Jewish : that not so much as the name of a Christian was known. But yet, in the interval between these two periods, we find, on Heathen as well as Chris- tian authority, that the Temple of Jerusalem, and the Jewish ritual worship, have been abolished ; — the city itself has been destroyed ; — the nation over- thrown and dispersed ; — and that in the mean while, a religion, asserted by mankind to have had its rise in Judaia, during the intervening period, has risen upon the ruins of the Jewish, and has spread itself among all ranks and classes of men, in every quarter of the world. It will, 1 think, be admitted, that this statement of the case, presents an historical ])henomenon of no ordinary cliaracter, nor of a merely commoii-phice interest. Viewed simply as a political or phiK>soj)hicaI (piestion, tlie curiosity of every thinking man w ould VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 139 be awakened to the desire of learning further parti- culars about it. What manner of person, it would be asked, was the founder of this supposed revelation ■ understood to have been? What account had he given of it himself, and what had he done, to persuade mankind of its truth ? Taking into our account the extraordinary nature of the case, it certainly would not excite our surprise to be told, as we are by Justin and others, that he was believed by his followers to have been invested with miraculous powers : — even though tlie reality of such pretensions, in the absence of all other data, might be thought very problematical. But whether true or false, we should be able to say, with confi- dence, that the same story as that which is now believed, was believed at a period so near to the events, as to render it next to certain, that it must also have been believed by those, who lived at the time, when if true, they must have happened. Nevertheless, it would be impossible, on such infor- mation as this, to say that a religion, whose origin was so indistinctly understood, was of divine autho- rity. Extraordinary and utterly inexplicable as its rise and rapid progress might be considered, yet between this admission, and the acknowledgment of its claims to be a revelation from God, would be a wide interval of doubtful speculation. / At this i)oint, then, let us suppose a discovery to be made, for the first time, not of the New, but of the Old T estameii t. The language in which 140 THE riiOPp:R use of rRornEcv [lect. the volume is written, would be a guarantee of its antiquity : the hands in whose keeping it had been preserved, would be a warrant for its genuineness ; many other things there are about it, which would create a lively interest. But it is in relation to the great problem we have been speaking of, that its importance would be chiefly felt ; and felt, I think, not without emotions of wonder and surprise. Upon examining the volume attentively, we should find, that a large portion of the whole was directly referrible, and the remainder of it, for the most part, indirectly, to a promise, said to have been made by the Supreme Being, to the original parents of the great family of mankind, purporting that certain privileges, forfeited by them, and with- drawn from their children, should be restored in the person of one of their descendants, — who is described as " the seed of the woman." This Pro- mise, thus generally expressed, (as the ajiplication of it was al§o very, comprehensive,, embracing appa- rently all the children of Adam^ was in j)rocess of time repeatedly renewed ; and always with some circumstance appended, clearing up, and, at the same time, defining its meaning; until at length, it becomes plain, that the sense of it must be under- stood, as indicating the approach of some great and mysterious individual, through whom God proposed entering into a new covenant with mankind. The names under which this exalted j)c'rson is described, arc connnensurate with so high an em- VIIT.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 1 4 1 bassage. " Thy King cometli ;" " thy Salvation Cometh ;" " the Lord coraeth ;" " the Messenger of the Covenant, he shall come ;" " the Desire of all nations shall come." " The Son of God ;" " the Son of Man ;" " the Holy One ;" " the Just One ;" " the Lord our Righteousness ;" — are also titles at- tributed to him ; but the appropriate name, by which he was more characteristically designated, was the JMessiah, that is, the Christ, or the Anointed. On further examination, we find that the re- velation, of which this divine Messenger was to be t]]e bearer, is abundantly clear, as to the general fact, however indefinite as to some of the parti- cular truths, that were to be disclosed. Conform- ably with the promise made to Adam, it was to be a dispensation, under which an atonement and reconciliation of some sort, was upon repentance, to be effected between man and his offended Maker. In that day, all the false religions of the world were to disappear ; the idols were to be utterly abo- lished ; they were to go into the holes of the rocks and the caves of the earth, for fear of the Lord ; whose power alone was to be exalted, and the earth to be full of the knowledge of his name, as the waters cover the sea. The kingdoms of the world were to become the kingdoms of the Lord ; — a new heaven and a new earth were to be created, m which the righteous only should dwell, by an everlasting covenant, which should never be destroyed, but stand fast for ever. 142 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [LECT. Sublime as is the language, in which the general import of the Promise is here descriljed, yet the dignity of the Messenger, in whom the fulfilment was to be accomplished, and upon whose shoulders the government of this mysterious kingdom was to be placed, is expressed in terms which are, if possi- ble, still more sublime. His name, we are told, shall be called, " Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty _/^ God, the Everlasting Father, the Prrnce of Peace." But though all the nations of the earth were to be blessed in him ; though his dominion was to ex- tend from one end of the earth to the other ; though kings were to fall down before him, and princes to worship him ; — yet was he to have no external marks of greatness or superiority ; he was to have no form nor comeliness ; and when men saw him, there was to be no beauty that they should desire him. His first appearance was to be without noise or obstruction ; he was not to cry, nor lift up, nor cause his voice to be heard in the streets ; but was to grow up silently and imperceptibly, Hke a tender plant, or a root out of a dry ground. JNIoreover, he, was to be a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; he was to be taken from prison and from judgment, and be brought like a lamb to the slaughter; but it was for our transgressions that the promised Deliverer was to be wounded : he was to be bruised for our iniquities ; he was to make intercession for the transgressors, by yielding his soul an offering for sin. 9 VIIT.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 143 Sucb^Jn Se^Y words, is the substance of that great Promise, towards which the thoughts and expecta- tions of mankind were directed in the Okl Testa- ment. It is obvious to observe, that the subject of it is not limited to time or place, but embraces all ages and nations ; the event to which it points is, not the downfall of an old and the rise of a new empire, in the world ; but the downfall of an old and the rise of a new religion ; — a moral and not a poli- tical revolution ; — not something which w'as to lia]i- pen to mankind, but something which they would, at a certain period, be brought to believe. That this Promise has, so far, been fulfilled, needs not to be stated. We ourselves are the witnesses, or rather, I should say, we are an evidence of the fact. But combined with the revelation of certain truths, and the annunciation of future mercies and blessings, are a great variety of circumstantial prophecies, hav- ing no relation to the Promise itself, but only to the time when the promised Mediator of this new cove- nant, between God and his creatures, would appear ; to the lineage and family from w^hich he was to spring ; the place where he was to be born ; and other particulars of a similar kind, which were to be the marks, by means of which the fulfilment of the promise was, at the proper season, to be ascer- tained. Compare, then, the particulars here stated and described, with the belief which mankind entertain ; that is, compare the marks laid down in the Old '' { 144 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [LECT. Testament, by which the coming of the Messiah was to be determined, with the facts relating to the nation, and family, and birth-place, and life, and death, of Jesus Christ, as asserted by Christians. Look also to the time, within which all these things were to happen, according to the Jewish Scriptures, and after which it is expressly said, that " the vision and the j^rophecy were to be sealed up ;" — and then see whether it ao^rees or not with the date assiofned by history to the rise of Christianity. This is a task which it requires no learning to accomplish. We are not called upon to inquire, whether the facts asserted of Christianity are true, but only to inquire what are the facts which its followers believe. And with this limitation of the question, it is plain, that so far as concerns the general history and character of Jesus Christ, or the great and leading doctrines which constitute the re- ligion of which he was the Founder, they are points which are laid down by the prophets of the Old Testament, almost as circumstantially as by tlie his- torians of the New. Whether the four Gospels had been written or not, would therefore make but little difference in the argument, by which we now con- nect the truth of Christianity with the evidence of prophecy. We learn from the New Testament the process by which the fulfilment of the prophecies was effected ; but their fulfilment is now a matter of fact, and quite independent of our knowledge or ignorance, as to the manner in which it came to VIII.] IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 145 pass. The correspondence between the present be- lief of mankind and that promised revelation, which is the subject of almost every page, in certain books of the Old Testament, is not a verbal coincidence, but a coincidence of facts : a coincidence between an established belief, about which there can be no doubt, and a previous expectation, not less certain, founded on the faith of prophecy. It matters not to inquire, whether the language of prophecy has been rightly understood or not. I am taking it in the sense, in which it was understood by those, who lived before its supposed fulfilment ; in the sense, that is to say, on which the previous expectation was built. If that sense was ivrofig, the conformity / / . .., XI , ._.• U- 1 .1„J k ^^ r/h of the event with the expectation which preceded ^ it, instead of being explained, becomes only the ^ more miraculous. If we were examining the case of some single prediction, it would perhaps be an obvious suppo- sition, that its correspondence with the event was merely accidental, x But the coincidences in the present case are not of a kind, or if they were, yet / they are too numerous, to admit of this supposition. If it be admitted that they have been fulfilled, to / say that it was the pure effect of a lucky hit, — a mere extraordinary toss-up in the chapter of acci- dents, would in fact be no explanation, but only a device to get rid of the question. And yet I am ^^ able to see no alternative between standing upon this ground, and admitting the divine origin of tlie . L y 146 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [lECT. / Gospel. I see no intermediate hypothesis by which V^ we can escape this conclusion : not even if we assume the propositions of M'hich it consists, to be untrue ; for this Avould only take us out of a difficulty, to plunge us into a plain aiitl palpable absurdity. / That a human being, by some effort or process of . reasoning with which we are unacquainted, might know beforehand certain facts, which were really to happen ; or that he should be able to anticipate certain doctrines, having a foundation in truth, which mankind in the lapse of ages would be brought to entertain, is at least an intelligible supposition. But to suppose that any depth of wisdom, or art, or science, should enable him to calculate by reason, or^any accident, enable him to guess by chance, that mankind would come, some hundred years after, to believe in a particular fable, in a certain dream, founded neither in reason nor experience, neither in truth nor in fact, is a supposition utterly extravagant and incomprehensible. But \vhatever explanation we may embrace, the data on which the ]3roof of the truth of Christianity, from the prophecies of the Old Testament, is founded, as they have been here stated, are facts which a man is not at liberty to call in question. The proof is not one which he can shake off, merely by denying the truth, or asserting the impossibility, of Christianity. The minute and circumstantial conformity of the religion which is now professed, with the revelation which the Jews expected, will not be at all less eer- VIII.] IN THE PRESENT PAYS EXAMINED. 147 tain, even though we should suppose the very exist- ence of such a person as Jesus Christ, to be a mere fiction ; and all that is believed concerning him, to be nothing more than imagination. On this suppo- sition, indeed, the actual belief of mankind will require to be accounted for, on some hypothesis, founded on an explanation different from that which we read in the New Testament: but this will be the only difference, so far as the present argument is concerned. If the facts related by the Apostles really happened, then the fulfilment of the prophecies to which they appeal, and the divine origin of the religion which they preached, may be proved on a testimony which cannot be questioned : namely, the signs and wonders, and innumerable miracles, by which the publication of it to mankind, was accompanied. If we contend that these last did not really happen, and suppose Chris- tianity to be a mere superstition, in this case it will be necessary to explain how it has come to pass, that the present belief of mankind in facts, which never had any existence, and in doctrines that have no foundation in truth, either human or divine, should yet be found minutely delineated and exactly fore- told, in books, of which the very latest was written, beyond all possible question, not less than 400 years before this belief was known in the world. To say that this miraculous knowledge was given to the writers of these books, by divine inspiration, will here be contrary to the hypothesis. As little will l2 0^ 148 THK PROPER USE OF PKOPIIECY [lECT. it be asserted, that this knowledge was conveyed to them by reason : for reason never could have anti- cipated the belief of mankind in propositions above, or contrary to, reason. If there be any third suppo- sition, it is one which I cannot guess, and therefore am not able to investigate. The object of the preceding remarks has been to shew the proper use to be made of the Old Testa- ment, by us in the present day ; and how important a place it occupies in the evidences of Christianity. To omit this testimony altogether, or pass it over lightly, as not essential, is as great and unaccount- able a mistake, as has ever been committed in theo- logy. It may be admitted that the proof from the New Testament is complete in itself, since the esta- blishment of Christianity, without any help from the Old; but we have seen, that the proof from this last, is no less complete by itself, since the same event, without the aid of the New. The necessity for this double principle of evidence, was created by the exigences of a new religion. The i)roof of the prophecies having been fulfilled, would have been difficult in the days of the Apostles, if not impossible, without the argument from miracles ; as the divine authority of the miracles, could not have been originally demonstrated, without the testimony of prophecy. At the time when Christianity was first preached, both proofs were combined in the con- clusion. It can now stand upon either of them singlv ; nevertheless we are not to suppose, that one VIII.] TN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 149 or the other of these respective proofs may now be p hiid aside, or has become superfluous. The object ] which a man of serious mind proposes to himself, in studying the evidences of Christianity, is not to gratify his curiosity respecting the truth of the par- ticular miracles related in the New Testament, or the fulfilment of particular prophecies in the Old ; but to come to a right conclusion respecting the authority of the revelation which has been built upon them. There are difficulties, however, in obtaining the assurance we desire — partly from a consciousness of the fallibility of our own understanding, and, in the case where we reason from the miracles alone, from the fallible nature of the i)roofs themselves. The authenticity of the books, the competency of the writers as witnesses, or their authority, as judges, are ])oints which we cannot reduce to a mathematical certainty. Then again, the character of the facts adduced is so surprising, that it is not easy to esti- mate what is the amount of testimony which they require : or supposing them to have happened, the (loctrines preached by the Apostles are hardly less remote from our apprehensions, than are the events which they narrate, fi'om our customary experience. Even supposing these last to have happened, where we may therefore still ask, is our security, that the truths they published, are the very truths which the miracles were intended to attest ? These are not fanciful, but very natural feelings, J and which it often reipiires a strong effort of reason 150 THE PROPER USE OF PROPHECY [lECT. to put down. In a matter of such vital importance as the principles of our religious belief, and where the subject is in many respects so far above our com- prehension, we distrust our own understandings ; we seek some evidence, by which we may be sure that we have committed no mistake. Even the mathe- matician subjects his clearest conclusions, to what he calls a proof; well then may we be excused, if we desire to do the same, in our religion. But what course does the mathematician pursue ? When an algebraist or geometrician wishes to test the correctness of his deductions, he does not simj^ly revise his proof, but he subjects it to some other process of demonstration ; and if he finds, that two opposite or distinct lines of reasoning lead to one and the same result, he considers that it may be depended upon as certain. Do we then desire to verify the proofs which the New Testament affords, by submitting the argument from miracles to some independent test ? The thing is not difficult. We have the Old Testament in our hands. Let us try the divine authority of the Gospel, by the evidence of prophecy. If the conclusion comes out, point by point, the same from the Old Testament, as we had previously arrived at, by reasoning from the New ; or vice versa, if the conclusion which we draw from the latter is confirmed by the former, then we shall have obtained the same result, from two jirocesses of reasoning as independent of each other, as any which the strictest demonstration would require. At the time when the miracles were exhibited. VIII. J IN THE PRESENT DAYS EXAMINED. 151 neither the object for which, nor the authority by which, they were wrought, could have been known without that " more sure word of prophecy," which, as St. Peter says, was " as a liglit shining in a dark place." But that " dark place," is now no longer dark. Prophecy with us is not to be regarded as a mere ancillary argument. It is now, as we have seen, a substantive and concurrent evidence, complete in itself; resting on its own strength; and requiring no other witness than the proof of its truth, which the actual belief of mankind Js sufficient to provide. But it is easy to see, this is not the position which was occupied by the evidence of prophecy in the days of the Apostles. They could not appeal to the actual belief of mankind, at a time when all mankind were either Jews or Paojans. The aro-ument in their hands must have taken quite a different shape. It must have been to facts of another kind, that they ad- dressed themselves, when they adduced the Old Testament in proof of the doctrines which they preached : — proceed we to inquire what those facts were, and what the reasoning which they built upon them. LECTURE IX. connexion' OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. -:/ Whatever construction we put upon that great Promise, the belief of which exercised so long, and in the end, such a fatal influence upon the destiny of the Jewish people, none can be proposed, which will not involve the supposition of some new era in the history of mankind : — a change of some sort in their condition under God's providence. Whether this Promise was from God, or, if from God, what was the true interpretation of it, is a question which we are not at the present moment called upon to diScuss. Keeping our eye upon facts only, it will be equally certain on any view we can take of the subject, that mankind at large have put that construction uj)un the meaning of the Old Testament, for which the Apostles contended. This will not be the less certain, LECT. IX.] CONNEXION, ETC 153 if we suppose neither the Jewish nor the Christian explanation to be right. I have never heard of any third interpretation ; but if there were many others, it would not affect this part of the question. It is clear, that the covenant, or promise, or good tidings, or whatever it is to be called, which forms the subject of those portions of the Old Testament which are not historical, if it has not been realized in the Gospel, has not been realized at all. Viewing the question, then, as between the Jews and Apostles, and taking the New Testament as our guide, it would not appear that any difference of opinion existed, at the time when Christianity first appeared, as to the reality of the Promise to which the minds of men were then pointed ; but only as to the time and place of its fulfilment ; — whether in this or in another life, whether in a literal or in a spiritual sense. It is plain, moreover, that the solution of this doubt could not be ob- tained beforehand, merely from the words of the Old Testament. It was a question which had been /' left open, and could be determined only by the event. But a time was predicted, when this uncertainty was to be removed. God was to send a " Messenger of the covenant," who was to interpret his Promise, and pronounce the conditions, upon which it would be offered to mankind. From his mouth the re- velation was to proceed. This, at once, narrowed the controversy, between the nation of the Jews f r 154 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. and the Apostles. Was Jesus of Nazareth, that Messenger ? " Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another ?" This was the one question on which issue was joined. Was he, or was he not, "that prophet, that should come into the world ?" In the present day, this question, as has been already said, may comparatively speaking, be easily answered. The time when " that prophet " was ex- pected, is now passed. We have lived to witness the fulfilment of the Promise which was made to mankind ; and the belief of millions in its truth, has become an initial point, from which all our reasonings may diverge. But the Apostles, as we have seen, were shut out from all the advantages, which the lapse of time has furnished. They were thrown upon the necessity of adducing a more direct evidence ; and one, upon human grounds of reasoning, much more difficult of access. What that evidence was, I shall now proceed to examine. In the discussion of this point, I shall not go out of my way, when it can be avoided, to argue any point of opinion ; my business is simply to exhibit a statement of the proofs on which the belief of mankind, as to the fulfilment of the ex- pected Promise, whether right or wrong, was origi- nally founded. I need hardly observe, that all the knowledge we possess on this head, which is not quite general, has been drawn from the New Testament. There is no other source to which we can apply for authentic IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 155 information. On examining this book then, we find that the whole volume, from the beginning to the end, relates to Jesus Christ : — his birth, — his ac- tions, — his sayings, — his deportment and character, are there, in a very lively manner, pourtrayed : and from these, the writers of this book, strenuously and successfully contended, that he was that Divine Mes- senger so often spoken of in the Old Testament, in whom all the nations of the earth were to be blessed. This is the single point which they endeavoured to prove. It is not that he was a prophet, but that he was the Prophet. It is not that he delivered a mes- sage from God, but that message, which the whole Jewish people were then and there expecting ; and which related not to the promise of some revelation, but to the meaning of a revelation long since in their possession ; one which had been sealed up, indeed, from their knowledge, but the contents of which was, and had been, for many generations, the object of their earnest and wondering curiosity. The question then which we have to examine, is this : What were the circumstances, in the life, and actions, and teaching of Christ, by which so high a claim was to be substantiated? Assuming all the facts related in the New Testament really to have happened : — what were the prophecies fulfilled in his person, by which those who were living when he came into the world, could know with certainty that he was that Messiah, whom they had so long- desired? What were the truths and doctrines he 156 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [LECT. taught, wliich when they came to be revealed, ex- plained the meaning of the " words of this sealed book," to use the expression of Isaiah, wliich had been so long entrusted to the keeping of one parti- cular people, set apart apparently from the rest of mankind, for that express purpose ? If we call to mind the remarks which were made in a former Lecture, when discussing the general principles upon which the proof of a divine revela- tion depended, we shall be able to appreciate all the difficulties, with wliich the task, undertaken and ac- complislied by the Apostles, was environed. But in addition to those wliich I then pointed out, as in- herent in the thing itself, theoretically considered, — there was, in the case of the Gospel, a difficulty, over and above, arising out of a peculiarity in the leading doctrine of which it consists, — I mean the death of its Founder. The language both of the Old and New Testa- ments, clearly indicates that this death was to be caused by violent means : it was to be a sacrifice, a ransom, a propitiation, an atonement. The words of prophecy directly express this in many places. In the New Testament it is always said, that the very purpose of Christ's coming, was to die for the sins of the world. I am not now asserting any theo- logical point, but merely stating what is the language used by the Apostles, as well as by the writers of tlie Okl Testament. Moreover, the whole his- tory, as well as particular i)assages of the latter. y JX.J WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 157 imply that the instruments of tliis crime were to be the Jews themselves, — the very people among whom he was to be born, and with whom the pro- phecies relating to him had been deposited. But how was this to be effected ? The object which these prophecies had in view was, that the Jews should know their Messiah, when the time for his appearance among mankind should arrive. But if, when he came, they were to be the instruments, in the hand of God, of putting him to a shameful death, it was necessary, that the meaning of the prophecies relating to him, should be carefully withheld from their knowledge. For it is hardly to be supposed that they would voluntarily have incurred the guilt of crucifying the Lord's Anointed. The act presupposes, that they were ignorant of his true character. The hypothesis, then, upon which this portion of the prophecies was constructed, would seem to require, that " the marks of the Messiah," as they are termed by the Jews, should be of such a kind, as not to afford the means of recognizing his person, while be was yet on earth. '^ ^;:,./^j^/ ./ Xv, //J^/:^^ -^r i iT^^^i- '■'->— -^y That This was, in effect, the case, we learn from"] , ' ^ ' the New Testament. But the fact is not the less(^ remarkable. In the whole volume of the Old Testa-/ ^r*-^^- ment, there is no single prophecy, so expressly/ //t^%«+^ referred to the Messiah by their ancient paraphrasts, nor so frequently alluded to, in other ancient writings of the Jewish Church, as the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah. There is scarcely a verse, from the beginning . ' »i^-#V-».. 158 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. to the end of the Targum of Jonathan, upon this important scripture, in which the Messiah is not directly named, as the subject of the prophecy. In the Pugio Fidei are numerous extracts out of several later Jewish documents, from which it would appear, that their earlier Rabbins had deduced from this same chapter, a knowledge of the mediatorial office of the Redeemer. The Jews of the present day acknowledge the prophecy, in the same sense as their forefathers understood ; — but yet it is next to cer- tain, that the death of the Messiah, at the hands of his own, or of any other people, was never appre- hended by them, as one of the events by which his advent would be declared. Though this part of his fiiture history is foreshown as clearly as words can express, in the twenty-second Psalm, in the ninth of Daniel, and in the well-known chapter of Isaiah just now alluded to; and though other parts of these same chapters are by the Jews themselves referred to the Messiah (and, indeed, in the case of the two last at least, could not have been otherwise): — yet does this event appear, from the very beginning, to have been entirely concealed from the knowledge of their church. We are not, at present, called upon to explain the reasons why the Jews, as a nation, rejected Jesus Christ ; but only to state the grounds, on -which man- kind in general consented to receive him as their Saviour. Those who disbelieve in his divine authority will, of course, adduce the conduct of the Jews, as a 9 IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 159 presumptive argument against it. But, on the other hand, they by whom his divine authority is believed, will consider the same fact, as an evidence of the con- trary conclusion. For we have seen, that except the Jews had been kept in ignorance on this point, that great prophecy, on which the whole scheme of the Gospel rests, could not, humanly speaking, have been fulfilled. And we have also seen, that on their own hypothesis of the meaning of those very portions of the Old Testament, in which this prophecy occurs, their denial of the existence of this particular prediction, whether right or wrong, is equally unaccountable. Be the force, however, of the objection what it may, it was foreseen and provided against. There are few things more pointedly spoken of in the Old Testament, than the future blindness which would be made to fall upon the Jews. In the very earliest of all the prophecies relating to their nation, when Moses is speaking of the intolerable miseries which they would have to endure in the last days, it is mentioned, among other instances, " that they shall grope at noon-day, as the blind gropeth in darkness \" Isaiah, speaking of the same period, tells the Jews " the spirit of deep sleep would then be poured upon their understandings." They were " to have eyes, and see not ; ears were they to have, and hear not," — " their heart was to be made fat and their ears heavy, and their eyes to be shut, lest they should ' Deut. xxviii. 29. / 160 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and should be con- verted and healed'." It would be easy to accumulate authorities on this head from almost every part of the Old Testament. But they must be in the memory of every one who is conversant with the Scriptures ; as must be also, the frequent allusions to them, which are made by our Saviour. The fact is very exactly stated by St. Paul, when he tells tlie Corinthians, that the minds of the Jews " were blinded ; for until this day," (speaking of the veil which Moses put over his face-,) " remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament. Even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart ^" If the prophecies may be believed, ^ this effect was the act of God. And if it was the act of God, we have seen the reason why he inter- posed. The accomplishment of his purpose required that the Messiah, when he came, should be rejected of the Jews ; but as the great end in view was to reveal him to mankind at large, how was this last purpose to be obtained, without such evidence as would, at the same time, open the eyes of the former ? We know that the difficulty was overcome : let us examine the means which were employed. / With respect to miracles, it was believed by the ' Jews, that many wonderful signs would be manifested , in the days of the Messiah ; among others, that the ' Ch. vi. 'J, 10. "^ Exod. xxxiv. ' 2 Cor. iii. 11, IT). IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 161 blind would receive their sight, and that the lame would walk, and that there would be no more sick- ness nor death. But, as far as I am able to judge, they considered these as general blessings, belonging to the kingdom which he would establish. I cannot find any authority for supposing, that they were reckoned among the marks, by which he was to be personally known ; nor does the language of the Old Testament necessarily lead to such a supposition. The Jews strenuously and unanimously assert, that it does not. But their present way of thinking, except when it confirms the Christian interpretation, is seldom of much importance, and need not, in this case, be regarded. Of the evidence which the miracles of Christ afforded of his divine authority, few will doubt; at least not in the present day. But I am speaking of this evidence, as it appeared at the time when Christ was born ; and considering only, whether it was among the foreshown marks of the Messiah. Of this I have found no sufficient proof. Putting aside, then, the miracles ascribed to Christ, and the uncommonness of the character which he displayed, and looking only to the outward circum- stances of his appearance, — few things strike the mind more forcibly, when reading his history, than the total absence of every thing, by which his person could be distinguished, from the general mass of human beings. The great majority of mankind belong to the labouring part of the community; and in that M ^< / "' ''' -e..^- /> .4^ Jlf^ ^'-.r A 2^. • :^' // 162 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. class was the Saviour born. In that class was he also educated, and passed all the years, both of his youth and manhood ; nor does he seem, even during the period of his ministerial duties, ever to have stepped beyond it. Of his habits or actions as an individual, we know absolutely nothing ; no private incident or anecdote of his life has been preserved, even in tradition. Nevertheless, if we compare his history, brief as it is, with those parts of the pro- phecies which relate to the future INIessiah, we shall see that there is no note or stipulation, in any part of them, which was not fulfilled in his life, as it has been related in the New Testament; nor any cir- cumstance to be pointed out in any part of his life, which was adverse to his ])retensions, as ascertained from the Old. And yet, so strictly e.vcliisive were all the marks on which the proof was made to depend, that upon looking into the life of Christ as it has been preserved by the evangelists, and comparing it with the prophecies ; or examining the prophecies, and comparing them with his life, — it will be difficult to jioint out any passage of either, by which the identity of Jesus with the future Messiah, could have been conclusively asserted. Besides the miracles which he performed, there were abundant materials to be found in what he said and did, to cause admiration, — to create surmise, — to perplex the judgment of mankind ; but upon the face of the narrative, there is no fact by which he could have been recognized as the Messiah. Not any inci- IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 16*3 dent is mentioned, which could properly have been made the subject of a prophecy. But if there had been, care was taken that no marks of that kind should be foretold. Precautions had been provided, to defend mankind from the danger of believing in false Christs ; but all means were withheld, by which the Jews might know, how to discern the true one. No one, not of the seed of Abraham, could be the Messiah ; no one, not of the tribe of Judah ; no one, / not of the lineage of David; no one, not born at / Bethlehem ; no one, not coming into the world before a certain epoch • no one coming into it, after. More- over, the particular event. was clearly foreshown, after which all hope of his coming would be, for ever, ] at an end. But in the age when Jerusalem was destroyed, though the number of persons could not be large, yet there might be many more individuals than one, whom these limitations of time, and place, and lineage, would not have excluded. Every one of these marks was negative ; not one of them was such as could only apply to a single individual. Effectual preservatives they might be, under Divine Providence, against the possibility of imposition ; but, taken by themselves, they were nothing more. Thus far, then, the blindness of the Jews is not so surprising, as it might at first sight have appeared. During the period of Christ's ministry upon earth, there was not one definite mark by which he could be infallibly recognized. Viewing the Scriptures in the light, in which the Jews then and since have re- ^ c M 2 164 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. garded them, and fixing our eye upon those particular predictions, by which all their thoughts and expecta- tions were absorbed, — it may be said of Christ, that his appearance, as well as his pretensions, instead of fulfilling, not only seemed, but did actually contradict, every one of the affirmative prophecies, upon which the popular belief was built. If we examine closely the narrative of the Evan- gelists, we shall perceive that the faith, even of the Apostles themselves, at this period, amounted to nothing more than a lively opinion ; an eager hope, in which their understanding had less share than their heart and imagination. While their Divine Master was alive, they " had trusted that it had been he, which should have redeemed Israel ;" but the persuasion of this tnith was not proof, in their minds, against the fact of his crucifixion. It would be little better than a waste of time to produce proofs of this ; because no one who has read the Gospels with atten- tion, can have overlooked the many jmssages from which it may be shown. Relying upon that evidence, as well as upon the circumstances of the case, I think it may be asserted, without exaggeration, that at the moment when " Jesus bowed his head and gave up [ the ghost," there was not a human being upon earth who knew, with full assurance, whose spirit it was, which had taken its departure. T Mill add, that if the ; story had closed there and then, there would not be, ( at this present time, a Christian in the world. All trace of an event, at which we are told by those who IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 165 witnessed the scene, that " the earth did quake," and " the sun was darkened," would have perished, even from the memory of mankind. This event, however, was supposed at the time, by those who compassed it, to liave supplied a test which was considered by all, as conclusive of the contro- versy, so far as regarded the opinion, that he was or could be the Messiah. " If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross ;" — " If he be the King of Israel, let him come down from the cross, and we will believe him ;" — " Thou that destroyest the temple, and buildest it in three days, save thyself;" — " He trusted in God, let him deliver him now, if he will have him, for he said I am the Son of God :" — are noticed by the Evangelists among the taunts, to which the Redeemer was exposed; expressions which I quote, because they are significant of the reasoning, that was in the minds of the spectators. But we read that God's ways are not as our ways, nor his thoughts as our thoughts. A more striking illustration of this certain truth need not be adduced, than the case before us will afford. That which, in the eyes of the Jews, and indeed of all human wisdom and conjecture, seemed to disprove the pretensions of Jesus to be the Christ, by an evidence palpable to the senses of mankind, — was an argument by which his title was, and may always be, demonstrated. I am not now speaking of the fact, merely as it was the fulfilment of a prophecy. Doubtless, in this V 166 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. point of view, it furnishes a remarkable testimony to the divine authority of Christianity. That a reh- gion, the profession of which is co-extensive with human civihzation, — which the rich as well as the poor, the learned as well as the ignorant, believe to have had its origin with God, — should, nevertheless, have been ostensibly founded by one, who was put to death by public authority, between two thieves,- as a convicted blasphemer, — would reasonably excite our wonder and surprise, on any supposition that, we can frame. But that the fact should have been unam- biguously foretold, many generations before it came to pass ; and have been laid down, as the great and leading doctrine, on which this religion was to be founded, is something more than extraordinary — it is itself as clear a miracle as the imagination can well conceive. No wonder, if the suspicion of such a truth as this was hidden from the Jews. But in saying that the death of Christ supplied an argument by which his divine authority might be demonstrated, we should greatly undervalue its importance, if we were simply to speak of it in a general way, as the fulfilment of a great and amazing prophecy ; it possesses, if possible, a still higher and more important claim to our attention, as demon- strating, by infallible evidence, — by an evidence, independent of any opinion we may entertain as to the truth, either of the prophecies of the Old Testa- ment, or tlie miracles of the New, — that the parti- IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 167 cular proposition wliicli the Jews hoped to establish, when they put him to death, was not and could not be true. It is evident from the narrative of the Evangel- ists, that when the Jews dragged Jesus before the tribunal of Pilate, the impression upon their minds was, that he was an impostor. It does not appear, that .they denied or disbelieved the facts related in the New Testament ; but whether true or not, they thought that, by means of them, he was attempting to deceive the people into a false opinion of his real character. It is also plain from the narrative, that he had worked, or pretended to have worked, mira- cles ; and, moreover, that the interpretation which he had put upon the prophecies, in those places where the death and sufferings of the future Messiah are spoken of, was the same as that, which the Apostles afterwards, and all Christians have since maintained. These facts being premised, it will be easy to show that they are absolutely irreconcileable with the charge which was preferred by the Jews. The position which I hope to establish is, that assuming the truth of the history, in that part which relates to the death of Christ, the supposition of his having practised any deception upon mankind, had been so provided against, in the Old Testament, as to make the truth of the charge, on account of which he suffered, quite impossible. I need not say how important a point will be gained, if we can establish this proposition on any 168 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [LECT. infallible proof. Viewing the question as it relates to ourselves, it would seem to embrace the whole argument. If we could be certain, that the Founder of our religion neither deceived himself, nor was en- deavouring to deceive others — that he was neither an impostor, nor a madman, nor an enthusiast — it would follow, by a necessary consequence, that we who believe in his pretensions, cannot have been deceived. Accordingly, if we examine any work upon the Evidences, we may observe that this is the point at which the discussion always ends. After the argument to prove the authenticity of the books of the New Testament has been gone through, the remainder of the reasoning is uniformly consumed in proving, that the Founder of the Gospel could not have intended to deceive. This is the true meaning of all the disquisitions which we read concerning the sublime morality which Christ taught ; the reasonableness of his doctrine, the wisdom of his sayings ; the spotless purity of his life ; the consistency and perfection of his character : — all these arguments reach only to this conclusion. No one would contend that Christ was the Son of God, because he was meek and patient, and wise, and free from every taint of sin. The argument is, that no man who was all this, would have said that he was the Son of God, when he was not ; nor have pretended to miraculous powers, if he had not really possessed them. And here it may be asked, is not this legitimate IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANI^f .' 169 V reasoning ? Do not the qualities displayed in the character of Christ, as exhibited in the delineation which the Evangelists have left us of his portraiture, really refute the accusation of the Jews? We answer, that in any ordinary case, they would, beyond doubt, have done so. And they would do so in his case, if it could be demonstrated by any direct and infallible argument, that they were real, and not assumed. But we must bear in mind, that the case of our Saviour was no common case, and can- not be tried by any common rules. Many other pretensions were asserted by him, besides that of working miracles. He pretended to a power on earth to forgive sins ; he pretended to have been always in the world before Abraham was born ; that those who believed in him should never die, but have eternal life ; that all power, both in heaven and earth, was committed to him ; " making himself," in short, according to an expression of the Jews, " equal with God." Now, be the apparent sincerity and virtue of any human being what they may, if the question be brought to this issue, that we must either conclude them to be assumed, or believe in his title to such high pretensions as these assertions imply, — however difficult the alternative might seem to our judgment, yet would the latter supposition appear to be so be- yond measure improbable, that there would hardly be room for any liberty of choice. Putting the case thus nakedly and in the abstract, — if the same circum- 170 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. stances were to be acted over again in the world, mankind upon this statement would believe, that either there was fraud in the case, or fanaticism ; nothing could overcome such a suspicion, except it had been first shewn, that all solutions of this kind were impossible. Bearing then in our minds these general remarks, let us now come to the case which the Gospel pre- sents, as the facts are described in the New Testa- ment. I will not here enter upon the often debated questions, whether the truth of a doctrine may be proved by miracles, or the truth of miracles by the doctrine. The Jews had repudiated the doctrine of Christ ; they had slighted the miracles which he per- formed ; they had dragged him before the supreme magistrate, as a cheat and a deceiver of the people. Another fact is, that at this time there was an un- fulfilled prophecy among the Jews, not known to the tt, c. nation at large, or not understood, which stated that "" ^ the future JNIessiah was to suffer death by violence, . and by a judicial sentence : he was to " be taken fi'om prison and from judgment, and to be cut oft' from the land of the living." The above are not points of opinion, but matters of fact;. Assuming then the premises, I propose to show, that the sentence executed upon Jesus, was, under these circumstances, the means by whicli the charge made against him was demonstratively refuted. I am tempted to add, that in his particular case, there IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 171 existed no other means, by which it could have been certainly disproved. The proof here alleged, was not a direct proof that Jesus was the Messiah ; it was not a direct proof that he had really performed the miracles which he asserted ; but I mean to show, that it was a direct and absolute demonstration of what comes to the same thing, — namely, that when he put forth these pretensions, he was neither acting under a delusion himself, nor endeavouring to practise any upon others ; but that he believed what he asserted, and could not be mistaken in his belief. If our Saviour had intended to deceive the Jews into an opinion, that he was that long-promised Messiah, for whose coming they were waiting with so much anxiety, it is quite certain, that he would have conformed the proof of his pretensions, to the expectation and belief of the persons, upon whom the fraud was to be attempted. Or if he had ven- tured upon a new interpretation of the prophecies on which the expectation of the Jews, respecting the Messiah, was founded, it would have been contrived with the view of flattering, and not of shocking, their prejudices ; of conciliating still further their support, and not of needlessly exciting opposition. For example : — knowing that the Jews expected their Messiah to be one of their own nation, no im- postor would have gone out of his way, to assume the character of a Greek or a Roman. Knowing that they expected him to be born at Bethlehem, he 172 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. would not falsely have pretended to be a native of Samaria. Knowing that they expected him to be of the lineage of David, he would not have given him- self out, as one of the posterity of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat, " who made Israel to sin." By parity of reasoning, knowing that the Jews expected their future king to come surrounded with regal state and to assume the throne of Israel, it is still more certain, that no impostor would have rejected such an interpretation of their ancient oracles, — one offer- ing so many temptations to an ambitious or design- ing man, — for the mere vanity of being the author of a new interpretation, which should import that the future Messiah, instead of being a mighty potentate, was to present himself in a character, which was nearer akin to that of an outcast and a beggar, than of a king or conqueror. However, as there is no reasoning upon any cer- tain data, when the actions and motives of human beings are the subject in discussion — let us suppose this possible. Very incredible it certainly is ; but we may not perhaps say that the supposition is im- possible, — that it would involve a contradiction. But in the case where we are speaking of a presumed imposture, it plainly would be a contradiction of the hypothesis, to suppose that any one, whose object was to persuade mankind to receive him in a parti- cular character, would knowingly take up, and not only take up, but absolutely persist, at every sacri- fice, in a line of conduct which must sclf-evidently IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 173 defeat the very end which he was fraudulently aiming to attain. I have here put the case as strongly as the argu- ment requires ; but not so strongly as the fact. In the instance of Jesus Christ, if we assume the opi- nion of the Jews to have been true, not only are we to suppose, that he was fixing upon the prophecies relating to the Messiah, a sense of his own, in oppo- sition to the universal persuasion of those, whom he meant to deceive ; a sense which involved the re- nunciation of every object, which can be conceived to stimulate the ambition of a supposed impostor ; a sense, moreover, which directly and palpably thwarted his professed design : — but a sense which entailed the supposition of his being put to a painful and ignominious death ; and this not as a possible conse- quence, but as the very postulate on which the success of his fraud depended. Do the annals of man- kind supply, or has any one met, in his own expe- rience, with the case of such an attempt to deceive mankind as this, having been ever practised ? Cer- tainly, no miracle could be more contrary to the course of nature, than such a supposition as has here been made would be, to the first principles of the human mind. 1 have been reasoning on the impossibility of explaining the conduct of Jesus Christ, by sup- posing that he intended to deceive others. But perhaps it will be said, that he may have been deceived himself ; in other words, he may have 174 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. been an enthusiast, a fanatic, or perhaps a madman. A. As no difficulty is so great as the belief that he ' really was, what he pretended to be; if this can be disproved, it may not seem to matter, by what prin- ciple we account for his motives. Now I cannot but think, that in refutation of this hypothesis, we may, on the strictest rules of reasoning, appeal to the history of Jesus Christ. Though the wisdom of his instructions, the purity of his life, the calmness and majestic simplicity of his deportment, in every circumstance, however try- ing and affecting, may not warrant us in affirming that he was ' more than a God,' according to the expression of a celebrated French writer; yet are they, at least, sufficient to show, that he was not ' less than a man.' In fact, the religion of which he was the unquestionable Founder, furnishes a suffi- cient answer to such a conjecture, if we could sup- pose it to be gravely put forth. But there is a circumstance, belonging to the death of Jesus Christ, which at once removes his case out of the reach of every sort of suspicion ; a circumstance which makes every supposition, of fraud, or delusion, or madness, or enthusiasm, all equally impossible. The death of Jesus Christ was not the effi^ct of suicide, like that of Peregrinus, the crack-brained philosopher, of whose self-martyrdom at the Olymjiic games, in emulation of our Saviour, Lucian has written an account. Christ did not raise a funeral pile with his own hands, and invite all the people of 5 IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 175 Judea to witness, in his person, the fulfihnent of the prophecies. His death was in pursuance of a judi- cial sentence, inflicted not by his own hands, but by the hand of the public executioner, and at the insti- gation of his bitter enemies. In no other way could the prophecy have been fulfilled ; for the Messiah was not to die a natural death, nor by his own act ; though innocent, (for it was carefully stipulated that " he was to commit no violence, neither was deceit to be in his mouth,") yet was he to be " numbered among the transgressors ;" he was to be " taken from prison and from judgment," and " led like a sheep to the slaughter." Put the case then as we please : suppose Christ to have been both an imjiostor, and a madman, and an enthusiast, all in one ; yet how was he to accom- plish his purpose ? In what way was he to bring about the completion of the prophecy, on which he grounded his pretensions? The design, it may be admitted, might have entered into the head of a madman, though of a madman only. But it would require more ingenuity than the wisest man might possess, to have carried it into execution. For by what artifice, or under what conceivable pretence was he, without committing any offence, such as would confute his claims, to engage his enemies, the Jewish rulers, and not only them, but the Roman governor and the whole body of the people, to con- spire with him in so insane a conspiracy ? The absurdity here stated will be equally apparent. 176 CONNEXION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [lECT. whether we suppose Christ to have been endeavouring to deceive others, or to have been himself deceived. But on this last supposition, another difficulty pre- sents itself — in the miracles which he worked, or pretended to have worked. These might be either true or false ; but whether they were the one or the other, was a question respecting which, his own judg- ment could not have been deceived. Enthusiasm might mislead a man to believe, that he was a pro- phet ; that he was favoured with divine revelations ; and under the effect of partial insanity, it is impossible to say, what a man might not believe in this way. No explanation however of that sort is applicable to the miracles, which Christ pretended to have wrought. If they were fictitious, the charge of enthusiasm or insanity, may be fixed on those who were so credu- lous as to believe them ; but as against the agent, the charge must be that of fraud. We have before seen that this charge may be refuted, from the nature of things. Combining the history of Christ's death, as related by the Evan- gelists, with the predictions of the Old Testament, it is a fact which makes the accusation of imposture impossible. It would be difficult to mention any conclusion, (the denial of which does not involve a mathematical absurdity,) which I should deem more certain. The prediction of Isaiah may, or may not, have been a divine prediction ; it may, or may not, have signified the death and passion of the Messiah ; but if such an interpretation was put upon it by IX.] WITH THE EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 177 Christ, in opposition to tho whole body of his coun- trymen, be lie what he might, he was no impostor. It would less shock our reason and common sense to believe, that the history of his death, as we read it in the New Testament, was only a fable, invented pur- posely by his disciples, in order to make that opinion impossible. To refute such an hypothesis as this would seem like trifling ; nevertheless it is the only one, as far as I can see, to which an adverse party can resort. We know, however, that the death of Christ was a real transaction. It was a public act, and has been recorded by Tacitus, among the events which hap- pened under the reign of the Emperor Tiberius. When we read this part of our Saviour's history, as it is told in the New Testament, — so natural is the sequence of events, — so artless is the narrative, — the incidents are so simple and so probable, — that the true character of this marvellous transaction is often not duly felt and understood. Occupied with our own painful feelings, and with amazement at the deep iniquity of the human heart, the mind is made to lose sight of the event itself We see nothing strange or wonderful in it, nothing passing belief or re- quiring explanation. But take away the narrative of the Apostles ; say nothing about, how the event came to pass ; leave to the imagination only the dry fact which Tacitus mentions, — that the " author of the Christian name was one Christ, who had been punished with death in Judea, under the procuratorship of N 178 CONNECTION OF THE DEATH OF CHRIST [LECT. Pontius Pilate ;" — and I doubt whether so extraordi- nary a fact would have been credited on his bare authority. Many persons would have been tempted to class it among the many vulgar errors, with which history abounds. That such a religion as that of the Gospel, — so pure, so elevated, so free from every baser mixture of human weakness or passion, should have had its rise in such a beginning, so opprobrious in itself, and so little ominous of its rapid and per- manent success, — would be deemed a legend and not a history. And indeed, even with the narrative of the New / Testament before us, if the curtain had dropped at ) the closing scene of our Saviour's life on earth, the ( after-establishment of Christianity would have seemed an event surrounded with mystery and apparent con- / tradiction. For it would have been asked — Why, after his own nation had put him to death, as a deceiver of the people, should the rest of mankind / have taken up his cause, and have agreed to pay him divine honours ? Admitting the truth of all that is related of Christ ; acknowledging the wisdom of all that he said, and the reality of all the actions ascribed to him ; accept- ing his character, as it has been described to us by his immediate followers; believing his death upon the cross to be a sufficient testimony in proof of his just title to be that " prophet who should come into the world :" — yet these fiicts only prove tlio C ^^^^ ' A f] / , ■^ XI.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 217 which a person is led to reject Christianity alto- gether; but this kind of compromise between reason and revelation, is altogether inadmissible. The ground on which such a way of reasoning is defended, in this country at least, is a supposed misinterpretation of the true meaning of the Scrip- tures. But, as was just now observed, if they do not contain the doctrines, which the infinite majority of believing Christians, every where and in every age, have asserted, — this would merely lay a ground for impeaching their authority. We know, how- ever, that the infinite majority of Christians not only consent in believing the same great truths, but also in believing that they are to be found , written in the volume of inspiration. Here, then, the argument from prescription is of double force ; because, in a question which regards the meaning of language, be the subject-matter what it may, whether reason or religion, — custom, as every school- boy knows from his Horace, is an arbiter from whose decision there lies no appeal. Barrow quotes as a remark of Aristotle, that " what seems true to some men is somewhat proba- ble ; what seems so to the most, or to all wise men, is very probable ; what most men, both wise and unwise, assent to, doth still more resemble truth ; but what men generally consent in, hath the highest probability, and approaches near to demonstrable truth ; so near, that it may pass for ridiculous arro- gance and self-conceitedncss, or for intolerable obsti- 218 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lECT. nacy and perverseness, to deny it'." This mode of cal- culating moral probabilities, may perhaps be thought to require some qualification, when applied to abs- tract truths ; and perhaps, in other cases also, it may admit of exceptions ; but in the case, where the point in debate relates to the meaning of a writer's language, the rule is absolute. To contend, that the writers of the New Testament intended to convey any meaning except " that generally received," is a proposition which, on any other subject than re- ligion, reasonable people would not be found to argue. It is a position from which an adversary can never be driven, whether he is right or wrong; and therefore is, in fact, a surrender of the question. To return then to the argument: I had occasion to remark, in a preceding Lecture, that the great doctrines of the Gospel were not left to rest upon texts of Scripture, or the meaning of words, but upon the direct witness of God. In using these last words, I had in my mind, the resurrection of Christ, and his ascension into heaven, — taken in connection with the fulfilment of our Saviour's promise to his disci- ples, of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, and the miraculous gifts, which con- tinued with the Church for several succeeding years. These events I classed together as constituting one great fact, which supjilied the key, by means of which the true meaning of the Old Testament was ' Serni. VIII. vol. ii. XI.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 219 revealed. From this period, and not before, the sense of those parts of the prophecies which related to the divine nature of Christ, — the purpose of his death, — the offices which he continues to fill in re- lation to mankind, — was really understood by the disciples. It was then clear, that the words of in- spiration were to be interpreted in a spiritual man- ner ; that when the Scriptures speak of the kingdom of the Messiah, of his supreme authority over all nations and people, of the blessings which his people would enjoy, of the punishment which would fall upon his adversaries, — these expressions were to be referred, not to a visible dispensation of things, but to an invisible ; that is, to a future world, and not to this present life. If any person should speak of these propositions as absurd or impossible, he would display an evident ignorance of the proper meaning of the words. But certainly they are propositions not only very diffi- cult to conceive, but which even would seem at first sight to have been placed altogether beyond the reach of proof. The ascension of Christ, as we have said, and his subsequent unseen presence among his disciples, manifested as it was in so many visible effects, first oj)ened their understandings to the principle, on which the Scriptures of the Old Testament were to be interpreted ; but the truth of these facts did not involve a belief in all the other articles of the Christian creed. They ren- dered the supposition of them possible ; they en- 2'20 ON THE EVIDEXCE OF PROrHECY, [LECT. titled the Apostles of Christ to a hearing from the Jews; and called upon -the last to wei^h carefully tho'

rophecy; which is, that the subject of it must be some matter of fact ; something which is to come to pass in time and place. But how are general propositions, how are truths and doctrines, to be prophesied ? " Qui potest p7'0videri," says Cicero, " (flidquam futurum esse, quod neque causam habet ulla)?i, neque notam^ cum futurum sitf" Historical events may be predicted, and the .truth of the pre- diction may be brought to a test. The destruction of Babylon, the division of the empire of Alexander among his chief captains, might be prophesied ; — I the facts would happen, or they would not. But the / trut h_jof a theorem, of one of Euclid's propositions, for example, could not be prophesied : this is a matter to be demonstrated, — no other test of its truth can be applied. \ The distinction is very obvious, and is, no doubt, / of importance. In explanation, however, of the difficulty which it seems to present, I would observe, J that although truths cannot be predicted, yet there i are nevertheless two ways in which they may become ; the subject of a prophetical scheme. XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 237 I. They may be directly foreshewn ; that is, they > ^ may be represented to the understanding, under the form of types and symbolical actions ; with an intima- tion, that the true signification of them shall hereafter, at some assigned period and under certain predicted circumstances, be clearly revealed. For example, when Christ delivered the parable of the Sower to his disciples, they did not at first comprehend its meaning ; but the moment the key was put into their hands, by our Lord's explanation, the import of the figure, under which the true sense of the para- ble was concealed, immediately became as plain as if it had been couched in common language. Now this explanation was given by our Saviour in time and place. It was an action of his life, which we might conceive to have been foretold. I will take another illustration, which will make this still clearer. Our Saviour told his disciples, that " the kingdom of heaven was like unto a net that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind ; which when it was full they drew to the shore, and sat down and gathered the good into vessels, and cast the bad away." Now supposing, that with a view to repre- sent the mixture of good and bad men, which would belong to God's future Church under the Gospel dispensation, the high priest had been directed every year, to cast a net into the sea of Galilee, as here described, — this would have been a type, the meaning of which, it would have been impossible to interpret, had not our Saviour's words furnished us with a 238 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lECT. key, viz., the Kingdom of Heaven ; and the future communication of this key was a point of fact, which might have been made the subject of a distinct prediction. Whenever the Roman consul appeared in any assembly of the people, he bowed the fasces : " vocato ad concilium populo, summissis fa^cibus in coticionem ascendit^'' says Livy. This was strictly a type, signi- fying what it might have been made to foreshew, supposing the case of a revelation : viz. that the supreme authority of the state was vested in the people. In this way, then, it is plain that matters of doc- trine may be directly inserted into a prophetical scheme ; they may be foreshewn in parabolical allu- sions and representative rites, or other actions. / II. Matters of doctrine may be made the subject of prophecy in an indirect manner. I mean to say, ) that although i\\Q truth of a doctrine cannot be pre- dicted, yet the belief of mankind in its truth may be foretold. This is a matter of fact, which may come to pass in time and ]dace, just as any other historical fact. Let us put the case : — Suppose a revelation to have been promised many years before it was disclosed, the doctrines of which had been veiled under types and shadows, and scenical allu- sions, and the true interpretation professedly kept back until a fixed period, when certain other stated things should liappen : — tlien, if at the appointed time those things did happen ; if that revelation was XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 239 made ; if all mankind changed the religious opinions in which they had been born and bred, for certain new opinions, exactly in accordance with those types and shadows and allusions, — the interpretation of which, when put into their hands, had rendered the sense of their secret meaning as clear and perspicuous as before it had been dark and difficult : — here it would seem that we have a case in which, evidently, doctrines may become the subject of prophecy, not indeed considered as truths, but simply as proposi- tions that would come to be believed. In this way, the divine authority on which a doctrine had been received, might be as certainly known as the divine inspiration, by which we were sure that the belief of it had been predicted. I shall produce some ex- amples from the Old Testament, which, will perhaps make my meaning, in this part, more clear, and at the same time throw light upon the general argu- ment. The divine nature of Christ, in relation to our knowledge, is not a fact, but a proposition ; and, as such, its truth could not be made the subject of a direct prediction. But it is a fact, and not a propo- sition, that divine worship is now paid to him, and has been from the beginning ; — it may be contrary to reason to speak of Christ as if he was a divine being, but it is a fact that he is so spoken of; that he is and has been called God. Let us turn now to the Scriptures. We find in 240 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [LECT. Isaiah ' these words : " The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light : they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined. — For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given ; and the government shall be upon his shoulder : and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father,^ the Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his govern- ment and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it, with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even for ever." Take another passage, from Jeremiah^: " Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In his days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell safely ; and this is his name whereby he shall be called. The Lord our Righte- ousness." - 1 - In the last of these passages, the words in Hebrew are, " Jehovah our Righteousness ;" and both this passage and that from Isaiah, are distinctly referred to Christ in the Targum of Jonathan : there is no question, therefore, about the sense in which they were understood by the ancient Jewish Church. ^ It is no less certainly a fact, that from the days of the Ch. ix. 2. G, 7. ' Ch. xxiii. :>, (J. XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 241 Apostles to the present, our Saviour has been " called " the Mighty God ; that " the name whereby he has been called " has been The Lord our Righte- ousness. Here, then, is a case in which a proposition may stand upon the evidence of prophecy, and in which it actually does so stand. Right or wrong, the belief o{ our Lord's divinity formed part of that reve- lation which was to be communicated. Again, let us open at that passage of Isaiah (ch. "^ v^ liii.) in which the death and propitiation of the / Messiah are so openly signified. I have before observed that the whole of this prophecy is, with , ' one voice, referred to the Messiah by the ancient ) Jewish writers, both before and after Christ. So stringent is the passage itself, and likewise the tradi- / tion of their Church, as to its i:)roper interpretation, that their later teachers have been constrained to invent the doctrine of two Messiahs ; of whom one was to appear in a state of poverty and humiliation, riding upon an ass, and the other in the clouds of heaven, as a king and conqueror. We have consi- dered, in a former Lecture, that part of the prophecy which relates to the death of the future Messiah. But, connected with the prediction of this event, we have a revelation of the reason why he was to suffer ; and the matter of fact is so bound up with this latter revelation, as to make it impossible that any person should believe the former to have been fulfilled in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, and put R 242 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [LECT. any other explanation upon his death, except the doctrine which the Church has always entertained. The Messiah was to be cut off from the land of the living; he was to be taken from prison and from judgment; he was to be led like a lamb to the slaughter. And the cause of this was, the trans- gressions of his people ; for their iniquities he was to be bruised ; the chastisement of their peace was to be upon him, and with his stripes they were to be healed. Moreover, he was to bear the sins of many, and to make intercession for the transgressors. None of these propositions could have been made the subject of direct prophecy, except in the shape of types, — such as the scape-goat, the sacrifice of Isaac, the sprinkling the blood of the sacrifices, or ''' other similar parabolical actions and allusions. But in this passage of Isaiah, the great doctrine of our Lord's propitiation is so identified with the prediction of his death, as to be indirectly prophesied with as clear an evidence, as if the subject of it had been a matter of fact. We, who see the doctrine of a propitiation for the sins of mankind, established as the belief of the whole Christian church, may be satisfied, and justly so, with the word of Christ and of his Apostles for its truth. For the most part. Christians, in the present day, seek no better proof But in the days of the Apostles, the value of their testimony was the C very point in debate. Those who did not question XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 243 their sincerity, would yet have questioned their reasoning power, if they had affirmed such a doc- trine simply on the authority of their opinion. But with this passage of Isaiah in their hands, the death of Christ furnished them with a key, by means of which the whole mystery of their Law, and of the truths which, veiled under the shape of types, occu- pied so large a place in it. The suddenness of the light which broke in upon the understandings of his followers, and its effect upon their feelings, when our Saviour, after his resurrection, opened their eyes to this part of Scripture, is affectingly described in St. Luke. " And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And their eyes were opened, and they knew him ; and he vanished out of their sight. And they said one to another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures ? And they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them, saying, The Lord is risen in- deed, and hath appeared to Simon. And they told what things were done in the way, and how he was known of them in breaking of bread. And as they thus spake, Jesus himself stood in the midst of them, and saith unto them, Peace be unto you. But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they R 2 J 244 ON THE EVIDENCE OF I'ROPHECY, [lKCT. had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have. And when he had thus spoken, he shewed them his hands and his feet. And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered, he said unto them. Have ye here any meat? And they gave him a piece of a broiled fish, and of an honey-comb ? And he took it, and did eat before them. And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in the pro- phets, and in' the psalms, concerning me. Then opened he their understanding, that they might un- derstand the scriptures, and said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day : and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusa- lem. And ye are witnesses of these things. And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you : but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. And he led them out as far as to Bethany : and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he w^as parted from them, and carried up into heaven. And they worshipped him, and ro- XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF UF DOCTRINES. 245 turned to Jerusalem with great joy ; and were con- tinually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen." Having made these remarks upon the use of pro- phecy, as an evidence of revealed truths, and upon the place which the doctrines of the Gospel hold in the scheme of the Old Testament, I shall now pro- ceed to examine a practical objection to this evi- dence, in relation to matters of faith, which is too important to be passed over without notice. It is one which, though it might not shake the soundness of the reasoning, by which I have shewn the use and importance of prophecy, considered as a pre- paration for the belief of any particular doctrine or doctrines, may yet be thought to throw some doubt upon the safety of employing it, as an engine for demonstrating their truth. The objection, as applied to Christianity, is this : that in thus accounting for the ready reception of its doctrines, we introduce an hypothesis which casts a suspicion upon their divine authority. For thus it may be argued. If the original belief of mankind was not founded immediately upon the supposed divine inspiration of the Apostles, as at- tested by the miracles which they wrought, but upon certain preconceived notions, prevailing at the time, as well in their own minds, as in the minds of those among whom they preached : — by what rule can we be sure, that the doctrines of the Gospel are any thing more than human opinions. 246 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lECT. founded merely on popular prejudice. This is pre- cisely the view which has been put forward by the more learned of those who, admitting the divine mission of Christ, reject many of the doctrines which we find laid down in the Epistles of St. Paul, and in other parts of the New Testament. These doctrines, say they, formed a part of the popular persuasion of the Jews, hefwe the evidence on which they are said to depend, was exhibited. The founda- tion of them, therefore, they contend, rested originally, not upon divine, but on human authority ; or at least upon such a mixture of both, as to render it im- possible to distinguish between the two. This objection is fairly drawn from the preceding reasoning, except that it proceeds upon a supposition, that the evidence on which the truths of the Gospel rest, is to be sought in the facts related in the New Testament, and in them alone. Assuming this, the difficulty is obvious. We have said that the truths of the Gospel, as generally believed, would not have met with the favourable hearing which they obtained, except they had fallen in with certain popular opinions. They may, therefore, so far be said to have been founded upon those popular opinions ; inasmuch as that if they had been presented to a people who had never heard before of a propitiatory sacrifice, — of the remission of sin, — of salvation, — of a kingdom of heaven, — of a resurrection from the dead, — it is probable that no process of reasoning could have enabled the Apostles to explain to their hearers the XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 247 meaning of the doctrines which they preached. If these antecedent notions had been built merely upon popular error and superstition, (and there is no medium betMeen this supposition and a divine reve- lation,) it is plain that the Mhole diathesis of the argument would have been vitiated. No after-evi- dence could have given authority to conclusions drawn from such premises ; like Nebuchadnezzar's image, whose " feet were part of iron and part erf clay," it would have fallen to pieces from the mere want of cohesion in its parts. Let us jDut a case. There is a treatise of Bacon's, De Sapientid Vetenwi, in which he endeavours to point out the various truths, which were concealed under the mythology of the ancients. " Who," says he, "'that is told, how Fame was the posthumous sister of the giants, does not immediately see that by this is signified, the rumours and seditions which continue to infest the body politic after the cessation of rebellions ? Or, when he reads of the army of the giants having been routed by the braying of Silenus' ass, does not at once apprehend this as intimating how often rebellions are dissipated by the mere empty terror of panic fears and reports ? Quis tam duriis est," he says, " et ad aperta ccecutiens, as not to see these and such like truths under the various fables of Greece and Rome ?" Suppose then that these or similar truths (the revelation of which, as some have thought, was the object of the I^leusinian mysteries) had been preached 248 ox THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lLCT. by some ancient sect of philosophers, as from God. If the same interpretation which they announced had always been believed by many thousands, before their time, simply on the authority of common belief: — In this case, it is plain that no after-evidence, no miracles, no conceivable reasoning, could have con- stituted them a revelation, or have imparted to them a divine authority. If the fables themselves had been originally of human invention, no subsequent process could have invested them, in the opinion of mankind, with the character of inspired truths. But this is plainly not the hypothesis on which the truths of the Gospel stand. The types and sha- dows, and symbolical rites and ceremonies of the Jewish law, are assumed, as not being human inven- tions, but divine. The popular notions and belief which arose out of those institutions, we have su])- posed to have been the jjreconcerted effect of a divine dispensation. Whether the fact were so or not, is a very proper question to discuss; but quite a different one from the objection which we are now considering. If the notions and ways of thinking prevailing among the Jews, was the consequence of a miraculous Providence — in that case, instead of being reasons for distrusting the truth of the doc- trines of the Gospel, they are a part of the evidences on which these last repose. Moreover, it is an evi- dence which no skill or cunning on the part of human agents could have contrived. A person who did not believe the facts related by tiiexXjiostlcs, might XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 249 accuse them of having availed themselves of the state of public opinion among the Jews, to promote their ends ; this may be conceived ; but certainly none but God only, could have prepared this particular state of mind many generations before. Here the hypo- thesis of Christianity, if true at all, is essentially and demonstrably divine. This objection, however, that the doctrines preached by the Apostles were engrafted on a preceding be- lief, is not one which could have been urged at the time; because it formed the premises of their are'ument. That the foundation of this belief had been laid by God, and was not of human authority, ^ is the single point on which they and their adversa- ries were agreed. Before Me dismiss the subject, it may be desirable to say a few words, respecting the use, which may be made of the objections I have been just now considering, as affording a probable explanation of the reasons for the obscurity of many of the pro- phetical parts of the Old Testament. Viewing the Jewish dispensation as a preparatory scheme, it is plain that the difficulty was to adjust its parts in such a way, as to illumine the minds of the Jews, with only a partial knowledge of the revelation to be communicated. The question was, how little light would suffice for the purpose of enabling them to recognize the truth, when the time should arrive for revealing it more fully, and not liow much God was able to communicate. 250 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lECT. If the minds of men were to be prepared for a reception of the doctrines of Christianity, it is evi- dent that some approximation to the actual truth was necessary. There would otherwise have been no preparation at all. The mere expectation of a revelation of some kind, was not enough in the case of doctrines so difficult of apprehension, as those which we find in the Gospel. Habits of thinking, and trains of ideas were to be created, without which, as we have seen, the propositions it con- tained would not even have been understood. On the other hand, it was also necessary that all knowledge of the actual truth should be withheld. If the Jews had known this before Christ, the Gospel would have been no revelation. The advent of Christ, and the miracles which he performed, instead of being part of its evidence, would them- selves have required to be accounted for and ex- plained ; would have embarrassed, rather than have assisted the faith of mankind. I had occasion to shew, \ in a preceding Lecture, that except the knowledge of certain prophecies had been Avithhold, until after , their fulfilment, the proof of their divine inspiration 1 would have been impossible. If we apply the reason- ing by which this was evinced, to those parts of the Old Testament which relate to the truths that were to be*revealed, we shall observe, that there the rule will hold universally. No truth which had been known and believed beforehand, couhl have been made to stand on the evidence of fulfilled prophecy. XII.] AS APPLIED TO THE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 251 The principle will apply, as we saw, to a large class of facts ; but, applied to truths, here it is absolute and universal. When people, therefore, complain of the obscurity of the prophetical parts of the Old Testament — of the vagueness of this passage, and the darkness of that, and the figurative ambiguity of another — it may be suspected that they have not always suffi- ciently considered the nature of the case. Taking prophecy as a scheme, there are parts of it which must unavoidably be wholly or in part obscure. It is a condition necessarily attaching to this f)articular eyi^ence : a point assumed, and without which, the proof of its authority would be impracticable. It has been said, speaking of certain rules of rhetoric, that there are some, which people in general could not have discovered by themselves, which yet any man of understanding may comprehend, when pointed out to him : " Nam neque tarn eat acris acies in naturis hominum et ingeniis, ut res tantas quisquam, nisi monstratas, possit videre : neque tanta tamen in rebus obscuritas^ ut eas non penitus acri vir ingenio cernat si modo adspexeratr This exactly defines the true perfection of a typical prophecy, the object of which is some proposition, hereafter to be believed. Under whatever form the proposition may be fore- shown, — whether of some s)Tnbolical action, or of a ") parable, or of figurative representation of any kind — it should be such as no man could have divined beforehand, but which he immediately apprehends, 252 ON THE EVIDENCE OF PROPHECY, [lECT. as soon as its real meaning is suggested to his mind. This end is only to be obtained by the aid of types of some sort, and in some shape or other; and this is the use to which they are always appropriated in the Old Testament. One and the self-same key was to open the meaning, not of one prophecy, but of many ; not of one doctrine, nor one passage of God's dealings with mankind, but of many doctrines and many passages ; and the wonder, as it seems to me, is not, that there should be so much obscurity in the Old Testament, but that, under such circumstances, there should not be found still more. If we consider how multiplied are the disputes, which have been raised about the true contents of revelation, even as explained to us in the New Tes- tament — we shall easily see, how unreasonable it must be to complain, that the prophecies of the Old Testa- ment, and especially the part of them now under our eye, are not free from obscurity ; or that the true sense and intention of the author is not to be obtained, from a mere granmiatical examination of the language. This rule is utterly worthless in the interpretation of most of the jjrophecies. The true and perfect test, as I before explained, of the divine inspiration, is the sense affixed before the time of its fulfilment. If a prophecy relates to a matter of fact, the pre- vious expectation determines its meaning. If the event corresponded in time and place with the ])re- vious ex|»cctation, here we have a rule of interpreta- tion which admits of no mistake. Hut this rule, as XIT.] AS APPLIED TO TTIE PROOF OF DOCTRINES. 253 we have seen, cannot be applied to the revelation of truths and dactrines. They do not come to pass, as facts do ; — and as to a previous knowledge of the propositions to be communicated, that would hinder, if not altogether defeat, the ends of prophecy. The ^^. nearest approach then which we can make to any de- ^^ terminate rule of interpretation, in application to that part of the Old Testament, which relates to the sub- ject-matter of the Promise, and not to the evidence of its fulfilment, is this : — did the Jews know before- / hand, that under the institutions of the Law, and in 1 the Psalms, and in many leading events of their history, certain truths, afterwards to be revealed, were concealed ? If this can be shewn to have been the case ; and if it shall appear that those very truths which had beforehand been darkly gu'essed and faintly appre- hended in a low and earthly sense, became the very doctrines which, in a high and spiritual sense, were afterwards embraced by all mankind, — it seems to me, that the divine authority of those doctrines will rest upon an evidence as solid, as the reason of the most jealous inquirer, or even the most sceptical ingenuity, can require. How far the doctrines of the Gospel are able to claim an evidence such as this, will be the next subject for us to consider. LECTURE XIII. JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING THE FUTURE CHRIST. rU. hr^ the end of Joh. Buxtorf s Synagoga Jiidaica, is a chapter entitled " De Ventiiro Judaiorum Messid" in which he gives a detailed account of the expected ( blessings which the Jews look forward to enjoy, I when their promised Messiah shall appear. The dis- ■ sertation is fiill of curious matter, containing chapter ! and verse for every statement, and well worth the ^ trouble of reading. As it is of moderate length, I shall not content myself with merely referring to it, but endeavour to compress its contents into an abridged form ; with a view to some short remarks in illustration of the reasoning embodied in my last three or four Lectures, upon the belief of the Jewish Church, and upon the state of the argument for the truth of Christianity, at the mom»^iit when it wa.* 9 LECT. XIII.] JEWISH OPINIONS, ETC. 255 first planted in the world ; — before it had begun to make a noticeable appearance in the eyes of men, — while the belief in it was only a seed just beginning to spring up — and when its origin, its character, its fiiture destiny, and every point connected with it, must have been a matter of speculation even in the minds of the Apostles themselves. Although the authorities produced by Buxtorf are taken from the Talmud, the compilation of which was posterior to the time of Christ, yet there is not the least reason for supposing, that any material change has taken place in the theological belief of the Jews, since that period. The success of Chris- n^ tianity, and the evident clearness with which it may be shewn, that all the terms fixed in Scripture, for limiting the time of the Messiah's coming, are now passed by, has forced their learned men upon the necessity of adopting one or two opinions, probably / unknown to their ancient church ; — as it has com- \ ^'^(cy pelled them to change their interj)retations of some passages of Scripture, which before the time of Christ were understood in the sense which was put upon them by the Apostles ; — but these innovations , are easily distinguished, and do not in the least affect \ the substance of their doctrine. Among them may be mentioned an assertion to which I have before adverted, that there were to be two Messiahs; — one whom they call the son of Joseph, who was to be a suffering Messiah, and mIio, they say, has appeared ; and another, the Son of David, 25G JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [LECT. whose coming is the great object of their faith, and under whom all the glorious promises, which the Scriptures make to their nation, are to receive their accomplishment. Now the present hopes of the Jews, in regard to this, their triumphant IVIessiah, are beyond any doubt substantially the same, in most I points, as have been entertained by them, from a ( period certainly anterior to Christianity. His coming, say they, has been delayed on account of their im- penitence ; but it has been delayed only ; the pro- mise still remains uncancelled ; and among the petitions which are put up daily by them in their synagogues, one always is, that it may be shortly, and in their days, fulfilled. Before describing the several particulars in which C the happiness of the Jews, under the kingdom of ' their Messiah, is to consist ; it may be proper to notice the portents which are to precede, and to be the signs of its approach, / The first is, tiiat there is to be no school of the Rabbins, no chief of the Synagogue, — no faithful teachers of the word, — no good or holy men ; the heavens are to be shut up, and there is to be no food for man or beast. This they deduce from Hosea', where it is said, " For the children of Israel shall abide many days without a king, and without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and without an image, and M'ithout an ephod, and without teraphim." ' Cli. iii. 1. XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 257 The second sign is, that the sun is no longer to give its heat ; and that all kinds of pestilential dis- eases are to arise, and thin the nations of the world. This is inferred from Malachi ' : " For, behohl, the day Cometh, that shall burn as an oven," &c. The third sign will consist of various prodigies in heaven and earth, according to JoeP: " And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars of smoke." The other signs are of the same kind, and all severally deduced from express passages of Scripture ; as, that the sun is not to give light for thirty days, — that a conqueror is to arise, who, for nine months, shall oppress all the nations of the earth with his tyranny and exac- tions, — that there shall be at Rome a marble statue, representing a beautiful virgin, before which the wicked from all quarters shall fall down and be seized with the most violent love, — that this statue will be the mother of an infant to be called Ar- millus, who shall pretend to be the Messiah ; and under whom, the Jewish nation are to be driven from their own land, and to bo loaded with every sort of misery and oppression. That after this the Archangel Michael is to come with a great trum- pet, according to Zechariah% and, blowing to the four winds, the true Messiah and the prophet Elias will appear, and manifest themselves to certain pious Jews, living in the wilderness of Judea : — that ' Ch. iv. I. ' Ch. ii. SO. ' Ch. ix. 14. S 258 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [lECT. then the trumpet will sound a second time, and immediately all the graves that are in Jerusalem will be opened, and the dead will rise ; and all the Jews dispersed throughout the world, be brought in chariots and on the shoulders of the nations, to Judea. As the tenth and last sign, the trumpet is to sound a third time, as a signal to all the Jews, who shall be living upon the banks of the rivers Gosan, Lachor, and Chabor. I have greatly abridged this part of Buxtorfs dissertation ; and perhaps it might have been passed over without notice, because it is evident that the greater part of these signs are the inventions of an age, posterior to that of Christ. There are traces in the New Testament of an expectation on the part of the Jews, of signs of some sort to be exhibited to mankind, by which the Messiah's approach would be made known ; but the kind to which they were looking forward, were probably merely prodigies ; not such portentous dispensations as the Talmudists, reasoning partly from the triumph of the Gospel in the world, and partly from the condition to which their nation has been reduced, have since been led to enumerate. With respect, however, to the several Blessings which we find mentioned in the Talmud, as compos- ing the future condition of the Jews, under their promised king, — there is proof, that they were sub- stantially the same before the coming of Christ, as at the present time. It is chiefly in that part of IIIX.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 259 their belief, which refers to the vengeance which God will take upon the enemies of his people, that the Talmudical doctors have introduced inventions of their own, and given the rein to their imagi- nations. First, they are persuaded that the Messiah, when he comes, will gather together from every quarter of the heavens, all the dispersed of their nation in every quarter of the world, as it is written in Jere- miah ' : " Behold, I will bring them from the north country, and gather them from the coasts of the earth, and with them the blind and the lame, the woman with child and her that travaileth with child together: a great company shall return thither.' From these words they infer, if any, while alive, were deaf, or lame, or blind, that when the Messiah shall restore them to life, (as he will do all the children of Abraham, throughout the world, and conduct them to their own land,) all their infirmities will be healed ; for then, as Isaiah writes ^ " the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing." The general doctrine of a resurrection to life they build upon Daniel ^ : " And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake." In that day, likewise, there shall be none sick, but God will remove all plagues and all diseases from ' Ch. xxxi. 8. ' Ch. xxxv. 5, G. ' Ch. xii. 2. a "2 260 JEWISH OPINIONS KESFECTING [lECT. among his people. Moreover their days will be pro- lonofed to the asfe of those who lived before the flood. " For as the days of a tree are the days of my peopled" God will also not only remove all diseases, but all evil concupiscence and inclinations to evil. " A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you ; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh^" But lastly, and above all, God in that day will so reveal himself to the children of his chosen race, as that they shall see him face to face. " And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together \" I omit the long account given by Buxtorf of the feast, which the Messiah is to give to all the assembled Jews. It has probably a foundation in some ancient tradition, connected with the texts of Scripture which he quotes, as the authority they pro- duce ; but it is so absurd, both in itself and in its details, and is so plainly marked with the extravagant imagination, which disfigures the more recent inven- tions of the Jewish Synagogue, that I shall pass it over as irrelevant to the present argument, — which is only concerned with the opinion of their Church, at the period when the writings of the New Testament were composed. Of the antiquity of all the other particulars embodied in the expectation of the Jews, proof may be produced from other sources besides ' Isaiah Ixv. 22. ' Ezek. xxxvi. 26. ' Isaiah xl. 5. XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 261 those which Buxtorf adduces. But indeed no better evidence is required than the texts of Scripture, on which each several promise is alleged. These, we may have observed, are the self-same texts, as are commonly produced by the Apostles, in reference to their interpretation of God's promises: — a coincidence which is easily explained, by supposing that the reasoning of both was built, as beyond any doubt it was, upon one and the same foundation. That many, perhaps the majority of the religious portion of the Jewish nation, expected the above promises to be fulfilled in a literal sense, need not be doubted. Nevertheless it is not conceivable, but that there must have been very numerous exceptions. Indeed we know this to have been the case, upon the autliority of the Evangelists. They tell us of a whole class of Jews, \yho expressly denied that there would be any resurrection of the dead when the Messiah came. Many, we must suppose, would reject other parts of the popular belief; and some would regard the whole, as containing only a figurative description of that " world to come," that a'lwv fxeXXuiv, which was then, as it has ever been among the Jews, the great subject of religious faith ; indeed the only article o? faith, properly so called, which their creed contains. Be this, however, as it may — whatever was the state of the public mind in Judea, at the time when Christ appeared — yet as preached among a }>eople accus- tomed to believe, or to listen to others who believed, 9 f "1 262 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [lECT. in the future revelation of such a state of things, as has been just now described, surely the interpreta- tion of God's promises, which was proposed by the Apostles, was any thing but incredible. If it seemed startling, it must have been so, only from its novelty; ft'om its sobriety rather than its extravagance. Putting aside altogether the proofs adduced of the truth of this interpretation, as arising out of the great and wonderful events, of which so many had been witnesses ; and leaving the question to be determined only by reason and probability, — the Christian doctrine, as to the true nature of the y Messiah's kingdom, was plainly the less unlikely of the two ; less directly subversive of all that we ) should deduce by experience, or conjecture from reason, of the thoughts and ways of God. Disap- pointing, in the highest degree, the doctrine preached by the Apostles must have been, to a people whose minds had been filled with the imaginations of the ) Rabbins ; but not exceeding belief, merely on account of its opposition to their natural appre- hensions. Neither were those among whom the Gospel was first preached, at liberty to reject its doctrine, as being founded upon a new and unauthorized prin- ) ciple of interpretation. For the principle on which it proceeded was one, which is now, and always has been recognized among the Jews. It would be easy to show this, by citing instances where their ' writers explain the meaning of the several parts XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 263 of their Law, as typifying particular truths; and examples in abundance are produced by Schoettgen in his dissertation De Ilicrosolyma Ccelesti '. The source from which this part of Jewish theo- logy took its rise, is in the Old Testament. When Moses was taken up into the Mount^ the Jews believe that God then showed him^ the "patterns" from which the form of the ark, and all the various things with which it was to be furnished, were to be severally copied. This is alluded to in the Epistle to the Hebrews \ where St. Paul speaks of the law, as having only " the shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things." It was a well known tradition of the Jews, and the Apostle plainly assumes it, as a thing admitted and understood. The same allusion occurs in other places, where the writers of the New Testament speak of the " Jerusalem which is above ;" the " heavenly Jerusalem ;" — the " Jerusalem which is the mother of us all ;" the " Jerusalem which now is," the " New Jerusalem ;" — showing, by the way in which they use the words, that they were not proposing any new doctrine, but speaking of one which was familiarly known. What I have just said will not only prove that the Jews, at the time when Christ came, were accus- tomed to the principle of interpretation asserted • Vol. i. p. 1205. ^ Exod. xxiv. ' Exod. xxvi. 30. *Ch. ix. 23 ; x. 1. 264 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [LECT. by the Apostles, but will also explain what it was, which they understood by it. We are not, however, to suppose, that this principle was received only by individuals, or confined to the things, which related to the Temple. It was sanctioned by the whole body of their learned men, and adopted by them as the foundation of an entire system. Whether it should be called a theological or philosophical sys- tem, it may be difficult to say. Such as it is, however, it is not without merit as an ingenious hypothesis, though known by a name which has become a proverb of reproach among all other philo- sophers and theologians. The science I am speaking of, is the famous Cabbala of the Jews. I am not concerned with the conclusions of this science, about which I know little or nothing, but only with the principle, on which the science, whether wise or foolish, is built. " When God created this lower world," says R. Simeon Ben Jochai (quoted by Schoettgen from the Zohur Exod. fol. 88. col. 360) " he created it accord- ing to the pattern of the world above, in order that this world might be the image of the world above ; and his reason for so doing was, that the one world might be connected with the other." Assuming this as a fact, the more learned of the Jews have divided all human knowledge into two principal parts ; of which the one is embodied in tlieir Talmud, where men may learn the ]>ractical parts of divine truth ; but for the truth itself, they must consult their XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 265 cabbalistical writers, by whom the original principles of all things are explained. As I am now upon a subject in which it is easy to proceed beyond one's depth, I shall avail myself of the account given us by Reuchlin, of this part of the Jewish theology, in his treatise De Arte Cabha- ] ^ f-^ listicd^ published by Galatinus, at the end of his work De Arcanis, printed 1561. We may find the same account in other writers who have treated of the subject ; but Reuchlin drew his knowledge from the fountain-head, which few, except himself, would seem to have thought necessary. " Qicidquid," he says, " de Saci'd Scripturd homines optimarum ar- tium amatores, scientid naturali addiscmit, auro bono par est et appellatur Opus de Bresith. Quod vero scientid spirituali recipimus. Opus de Merchava dicitur, et auro cequatur optimo et purissimo. Scribunt enim CabbalistcB, quod Opus de Bresith est sapientia naturce ; Opus de Merchava est sapientia divini- tatis. Et quoniam utraque scientia utcunque circa mundum et ea quce consistunt in mundo, versatur ; estque Talmudistarwn et Cabbalistarmn^ ca in re, un- animis arbitratus, quod duo sunt mundi : primus, intel- lectualis, qui vocatur K2n D7l3^> ^d est, mundum ille futurus quoad nos ; et secundum, setisibilis, qui dicitur ntn D7iy, id est, inundus iste prcesens, ut ex verbis sapientum nostrorum recepimus . . . Idcirco dividuntur Talmudici et Cabbalistcb, secedentes in duas facidtates, tametsi ea.' ci'editis receptionibus ambce similiter oriantur et emanent. Nam utrique majwum suorum traditionibus 266 JEWISH OPINIONS respecting [lect. fidem habent, nulla ratioiie redditd. Sed hac distin- guuntur disputationis oi'dinatione, quod omne studiuniy omnem operam nniversamquc mentis suce inte)itio?ie?n, Cabbalista a mundo sensibilLfinaliter ad miuidum intel- lectuahmy transfert et traducit. Talmudista, aidem^ ( in mundo sensibili permanet, ac animum universi hujus mundi nan transcendit ; quod si quando licente)" ad Deum et beatos spiritus pergat, non tamen Deum ipsum ut immanentem et absolutum accedit, sed id opijicem causamque rerum et circa sua creata ocaipatum Igitur alticn^e loco et digniore gradu habendi sunt CabbalistcB " v^ ; The above passages are put by Reuchlin into the mouth of R. Simeon, the disciple of R. Akibah, who lived in the beginning of the second century. The / immediate disciples of the former are suj)posed to ^ have compiled the Zohar, before quoted, about the year 170. It is to this book, that we owe much of the knowledge which we possess, concerning the opinions of the ancient Jewish Church, on a variety of interesting points. But with respect to the parti- ' cular point, which it is my present object to prove, we have an older and still more unquestionably authentic authority, in the testimony of Philo, who was the contemporary of the Apostles. A large l)ortion of his voluminous writings is entirely de- voted to an exposition of the principle, just now stated ; namely, that all the things, and even persons and facts, which are described in the Old Testament, are merely avfx^oka tmv vo»)twi;, as he expresses it ; XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 267 the shadow of " the things unseen," representing, to our senses, truths that really exist only in the under- standing. It would be an endless task to shew this by an accumulation of passages from his writings ; but I am tempted to produce one extract, as proving that the supposition of a spiritual meaning being couched under the literal sense of Scripture, was a received notion anions: the Jews : one so common as to have been abused in the hands of the vulgar, and on that account, calling down the censure of the wiser sort among them. It seems that the practice of spiritualizing the v/ \y Scriptures, had extended itself so far in his age, as to have led many to disregard the literal meaning altogether, and to neglect in consequence the prac- tice of the law. This scandal Philo sharply censures ; and his reproof is characteristic enough of the little reverence, which Philo himself entertained for the precepts themselves, the outward observance of which, he so strongly recommends. " Although," says he, " all mankind were to agree to call a sick man whole, or a whole man sick, their opinion would not alter the real state of the man. Yet people are not on that account to despise the good opinion of mankind, which deserves regard, as a thing very useful in this life ; and which good opinion always attends those who, contented with things as they are, follow the customs and institutions of their fathers. There are some, who, believing that the 268 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [lECT. written law contains only figures of intelligible truths, study these last very carefully, but altogether neglect the written laws themselves. Now this," he argues, " might be very Avell, if men were intended to live in solitude ; if they were not members of society ; very well for men who were ignorant of houses and lands and the other conveniences of life, to follow truth, naked as she is in herself; but we must not forget, that the sacred Scriptures teach us, not to neglect the opinion of the world, and not to violate laws, which divine men, and better than we, have sanc- tioned." He then goes on to instance particulars. " The Sabbath," says he, " the feasts of the nation, the ceremonies of the holy temple, all these things will be neglected, if we attend only to the things signi- fied bv such ceremonies, and not to the things them- selves. On the contrary, our duty is to regard the written law as the body ; the other, that is, ra St' vTTovoiCov S»)Xovjit£va, as the soul ; and to value the former accordingly, as being the house in which the latter resides. In this way," he 'ells us, " we shall more clearly understand the symbolical meaning, and at the same time escape much blame and ill-will." I have given only the substance of the passage, for the sake of brevity; but it may be found in the Treatise irepl 'ATrotfciac, at p. 450, Vol. II. Ed. Mangey. Though Philo was a Jew by nation, yet his Mrit- ings savour very strongly of the Academy, and very slightly of the Synagogue. His own belief, evidently XITI.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 269 is altogether that of a professed philosopher ; and there is good reason to doubt whether he considered Moses himself, as being much more. I do not re- member that an allusion to the promise of a Messiah is to be found in any of his writings. He is called by Clemens of Alexandria, Philo the Pythagoraian ; but what the object of his writings was, — whether to philosophize Judaism, or to judaize philosophy, — it may be difficult to determine. He seldom refers to the prophecies, and when he does, he speaks of the writers, not in the language one might expect from a Jew, — as of men inspired with a knowledge of events to come, but as rig twv traipcov Mwuatwc, or Ttg tov Trpo^TjTtfcou OiaffWTTjc xojoov. So also when he attempts to illustrate the meaning of Moses, by explaining the hidden signification of the outward rites and in- stitutions of the Law, — it is to moral and philo- sophical truths, that he refers ; and not to such truths as Reuchlin speaks of, as forming the subject of the Cabbala. But we find no traces of Philo's opinions, or of that class of persons, to whom he refers in the extract just quoted, (so far at least as my own know- ledge extends,) in any part of the ancient theo- logy of the Jews. The modern school of Jewish theology has Maimonides for its author, who lived in the twelfth century. He has attempted to ex- plain the more obscure parts of Scripture, by sup- posing such reasons as he could find for the different institutions of the Law ; and his authority has been 270 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [lECT. quoted with more respect than it really deserves. As an exposition of Jewish theology, properly so y called, it is worse than useless, as being founded ^ '^^ upon principles, not drawn from any sources of tra- dition, but from Aristotle, or other authorities whom Hillel or Gamaliel, or the compilers of the Zohar or Mischna, would have repudiated with scorn. But there are no traces of any such philosophical spirit, in the writings which have come down to us from the ancient Jewish Church. The truths to which our attention is directed in the Zohar, and which are assumed to be concealed under the re- presentation of visible actions, and sensible images, refer entirely to the revelations, which it was sup- posed would be openly made, in the times of the Messiah. When the Talmudists spoke of the " heavenly Jerusalem," or of the "kingdom of heaven," or of "the world to come," — they signified a state of things to be established on earth : they understood these words to express a temporal state. When the same words occur in the writings of St. Paul, or the Apostles, we are to understand by them a state of things, which has already commenced under Christ's Church ; but the consummation of which, will be hereafter, at his second coming to judge the world. As the elucidation of this point is not imj)ortant to the argument, it may be sufficient to refer the j>roof to Schoettgen, vol. 1. Dissert, v. De Hierosolyma Coelesti, c. vi. and Witsius. Exereit. v. De Monte XIII.] THE FUTURE CHRIST. 271 Agar, §. 17, 18. and Exercit. v. Historia Hierosolymm, §. 29. All that I am at present concerned to shew is, that in putting a spiritual sense upon the pro- phecies, the Apostles were not introducing any new maxims of interpretation ; but were proceeding upon a principle, known familiarly to all the Jews ; one fully recognized by the learned, — even by those among them who, like Philo, seem to have considered their Scriptures, not in the light of prophecies concern- ing things to come, but simply as monuments of a wisdom almost more than human ; and under which certain divine truths were couched, not ap- parent to the apprehension of the vulgar. I am not examining, whether in adopting such a me- thod of arriving at the true meaning of Scripture, the Apostles were right or wrong. I am only ad- verting to a fact, and saying that, whether reasonable or not, the principle itself was a recognized princi- ple, to which individuals might not assent, but to which the Jews, as a body, were not at liberty to object. It may seem strange, at first sight, that a mode of reasoning apparently so uncertain, on any sup- position, and so totally inadmissible under ordinary circumstances, should yet, in the case of the Old Testament, have obtained, as we have seen, an al- most unanimous consent. But we are not to judge the Old Testament, on the principles of philosophical criticism, as we should a work by Plato, or Cicero. It does not profess to be a treatise upon religion or 272 JEWISH OPINIONS RESPECTING [lECT. morality, but to be tlic depository of a eommunica- tion from God to man ; the means by which, in the process of ages, mankind were to be brought to the knowledge and belief of things, deeply concerning their happiness, and such as they could never learn except by revelation. This is not the sort of end which is proposed in other books ; and, therefore, this book is not to be subjected to the same rules of comparison. The end for which the Old Testament was written, made it necessary, not only that its true meaning should be concealed, but that the Jews should know it to be so ; and be accustomed to regard their Scrip- tures not as men regard other books, but as a sort of mine, in which their learned men were to dig, night and day, for the treasures of hidden wisdom which they contained. It is easy to see how comparatively useless the Old Testament would have been to the Apostles, when reasoning with the Jews, concerning the_spiritual nature of Christ's kingdom, if the latter had never before heard of any except the strict literal interpretation. St. Paul's arguments, in such a case, would not have obtained a moment's atten- tion, even from the lowest of the people. On the other hand, the many advantages which were derived from the prevalent habits of thinking among the Jews, as just now explained, and from the ]>elief that all tlie })arts of their temple service, and much of their history, and large portions of the writings of the prophets, wore, as Philo expresses it, the mere XIII.] 'HIE FUTURE CHRIST. 273